Preamble

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

CLOTHES RATIONING.

Mr. Anderson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will state whom he consulted with regard to the Clothes Rationing Orders and the schedules of coupons required for articles of clothing covered by the Orders; whether any organisations of working women have been consulted on the matter; and what was the basis upon which the various schedules were compiled?

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Andrew Duncan): The schedules of coupons required for the articles of clothing covered by the Clothes Rationing Order are based in general on the amount of cloth in the garments concerned. The present schedules have been based on the technical advice received from advisory committees of traders, including traders with a special knowledge and long experience of workers' requirements.

Sir Joseph Nail: When the right hon. Gentleman says that coupons are based on the quantity of cloth in the garment, does he realise that women who have been in the habit of making their clothes at home find it impossible to obtain the necessary materials upon the present coupon basis?

Sir A. Duncan: There have been difficulties, but I understand they have been overcome.

Mr. Anderson: Do I take it that people who are conversant with the wear and tear properties of materials have not been consulted and that only traders' organisations have been consulted?

Sir A. Duncan: No, Sir, I did not say "traders' organisations," but traders

with great experience of workers' requirements.

Mr. Anderson: Do they include those who have actually got to wear the garments?

Sir A. Duncan: No, Sir.

Mr. Tinker: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been drawn to the need of cotton spinners of white factory drawers which they wear at work, and because of oil getting on them they require frequent washing and do not last long; and will he consider allowing this particular article additional coupons?

Sir A. Duncan: The special needs of cotton spinners submitted by the Trades Union Congress are now being examined by the Board of Trade. Additional coupons will be awarded to them if their clothing needs are found to exceed substantially those covered by the normal civilian ration.

Mr. Tinker: Will the right hon. Gentleman pay greater attention to the needs of the workers? Does he not realise that the better-off people can do with fewer clothes and that the workers need more because of being at work?

Sir A. Duncan: Very close attention is being paid to the special needs of workers, and, as I have already explained in the answer, the Trades Union Congress have submitted particulars of most of the trades.

KNITTING WOOLS.

Mr. Banfield: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will make available supplies of knitting wool to organisations devoted to supplying knitted garments to expectant mothers, wives of men serving in the Fighting Forces, in view of the difficulty of getting such supplies and the needs of expectant mothers?

Sir A. Duncan: I am not aware of any general shortage of white "baby wool," but shall be glad to investigate any cases which the hon. Member has in mind.

MUSTARD AND MATCHES (SUPPLIES).

Sir William Davison: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the difficulty in obtaining


mustard; what is the cause of the shortage and will steps be taken to increase the supply to retailers; and will he also state the result of his inquiries as to the shortage of matches for household purposes?

Sir A. Duncan: I am informed by my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food that he is not aware of any general shortage of mustard in the hands of retailers. As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery) on 14th October.

Sir W. Davison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if he were to pay a visit to shops, he would find great difficulty in getting any mustard at all, and that if he did succeed in buying any, it would probably be only about an ounce?

Lieut. -Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Could my right hon. Friend say where the matches are to be found?

INSURANCE POLICIES (SURRENDER VALUE).

Dr. Russell Thomas: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that some insurance companies have recently lowered the surrender value of long-standing policy-holders; and what steps he intends to take to prevent the past savings of policy-holders from being reduced and confiscated in this way?

Sir A. Duncan: I have no information to the effect suggested in the first part of my hon. Friend's Question, but, if he will send me particulars of any case which he has in mind, I will have further inquiries made.

Dr. Thomas: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I know of a case of an insurance company which has already done this, and does he not realise that the effect on policy-holders is almost as severe as it would be if the Government were suddenly and harshly to reduce the value of War Savings Certificates?

Sir A. Duncan: I shall be very glad to look into any case which the hon. Gentleman submits to me, but according to the

inquiries already made there is not evidence that what he complains of is happening.

Dr. Thomas: I will send the right hon. Gentleman the particulars.

Sir Herbert Williams: Is not the reduction in the value of policies a sequel to the policy of cheap money?

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY.

CORPORAL'S DISCHARGE.

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for War the reason for the discharge from the Army of Corporal Mick Bennett?

The Secretary of State for War (Captain Margesson): I have had some correspondence with my hon. Friend on this subject, and there is nothing that I can usefully add to what I have already told him.

Mr. Gallacher: Is it not the case that on his discharge paper this corporal is given the highest possible character as a soldier and a corporal, and that the discharge paper says that his services are no longer required? Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us under what paragraph in King's Regulations this discharge was made?

Captain Margesson: It is always open to the Army to dispense with a soldier's services because they are no longer required, and it was under that paragraph that action was taken.

Mr. Bellenger: May we have the information as to the paragraph in King's Regulations under which this man was discharged? Am I not right in assuming that there is an appropriate paragraph, and that it would probably give an indication of the reasons for the action taken in this case?

Captain Margesson: There is an appropriate paragraph, but I am afraid I have not got particulars of it now.

Mr. Gallacher: Is it not the case that this man was an exemplary soldier and corporal, and that he was discharged, not for anything that he had said or done and not for neglecting his duty, but simply because somebody did not like the politics he had before he joined up?

Captain Margesson: It had nothing to do with politics.

Mr. Gallacher: Well, give us the reason. It is a scandal. In view of the totally unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I shall raise this matter later.

DETENTION BARRACKS, BARLINNIE (VISITORS).

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that visitors to Barlinnie detention camp have to speak to the detained soldiers through iron bars; that the soldiers are in small cubicles three feet away; that as many as four visits may take place at a time with visitors and soldiers trying to make themselves understood above each others voices; and can modern methods be introduced instead of this method of dealing with visitors?

Captain Margesson: I am aware that the facilities for interview at the military prison and detention barracks to which my hon. Friend refers have been unsatisfactory, and the construction of alternative accommodation was put in hand some time ago. I am glad to say that the new premises have now been completed and are already in use.

Mr. Gallacher: Are we to understand that this method of receiving visitors will be stopped? It is only two weeks since I was there visiting, and I had this experience.

Captain Margesson: I hope the new arrangements will be found to be much more satisfactory.

HOME GUARD (ACCIDENT, HORAM).

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can give any information in connection with a number of Home Guards who were killed and injured at a demonstration held at Horam, Sussex, on Sunday, 12th October?

Captain Margesson: This case is at present the subject of a court of inquiry, and I am not therefore in a position to make a statement.

CONSTABULARY, ROYAL ORDNANCE FACTORY.

Mr. Anderson: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the War Department Constabulary Auxiliary, stationed at Royal Ordnance factories, are only paid at a flat rate of £5 per week, plus war bonus of 10s. of

48 hours consisting of six shifts, which include Sundays, with extra time payment only made at the ordinary rate; and will he take immediate action to bring the rates of pay up to the general standards operating in Royal Ordnance factories?

Captain Margesson: I am at present looking into this question.

Mr. Anderson: Will a reply be sent to me?

Captain Margesson: Yes, Sir, when my inquiries are completed.

Mr. Anderson: When may we expect that to be?

Captain Margesson: I am doing my best to expedite the reply.

BILLETED SOLDIERS (FIRE-WATCHING).

Captain McEwen: asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the fact that soldiers who are billeted-out, and who volunteer for fire-watching in buildings where they are employed receive payment of is. per night-duty, and each duty entails the private purchase of two meals each, one at night and one in the morning, at their own expense, whereas civilians, in similar circumstances receive 4s. 6d.; and whether he contemplates issuing orders to prevent such additional duties with the costs entailed being undertaken in these circumstances by soldiers?

Captain Margesson: I do not consider that the position of soldiers and civilians can be compared precisely in this respect, but I am looking into the facts.

Sir Joseph Nall: Does any consultation take place with the Treasury, in view of the fact that the Home Office scale for Home Guards is 3s. and for Civil servants 4s. 6d., whereas the soldier gets only is.?

Captain Margesson: As I say, I am looking into the facts in this matter.

ADMINISTRATIVE POSTS (OFFICERS).

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Secretary of State for War whether any review has been made of officers holding administrative posts who are under the age of 35 years, and of a high medical category; and if so, with what result?

Captain Margesson: The qualifications of holders of administrative posts are constantly under review, and, so far as


possible, officers under 35 years of age and of a high medical category are not employed on administrative duties except in field force formations. My hon. Friend will, however, appreciate that young officers must receive some training in administrative staff duties, in order to enable them to fill the more senior posts in due course.

JUDGE ADVOCATE -GENERAL'S DEPARTMENT (OFFICERS).

Mr. Bellenger: asked the Secretary of State for War the number of officers employed in London and throughout the country in work of the Judge Advocate-General's Department who are under the age 35 years and of an A medical category; and what steps he proposes for their replacement by older officers similarly qualified, or of a lower medical category?

Captain Margesson: Nineteen officers of the age and medical category in question arc at present serving in the United Kingdom on the military staff of the Judge Advocate-General, and two of these will attain the age of 35 within the next few days. In view of the fact that these appointments carry with them the obligation to proceed overseas at any time, I do not consider that this figure can be regarded as unduly high.

SOLDIERS REPORTED MISSING (INFORMATION).

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War whether relatives of soldiers reported missing still apply for further information to the casualty Department of the War Office or to the Fed Cross Society?

Captain Margesson: As soon as any reliable information about a missing man comes to hand it is immediately conveyed to his next-of-kin by the appropriate record office. No application by the relatives is necessary.

Sir A. Knox: As the relatives of British prisoners of war are continually writing to Members of Parliament and making various applications, ought we to send the applications to the War Office or to the Red Cross?

Captain Margesson: They should be sent to the War Office.

DIRECTORATE OF INVESTIGATION AND STATISTICS.

Sir T. Moore: asked the Secretary of State for War what is the unit or department known as the Special Investigation Branch now operating within the Army; and what are its duties, under what officers does it function and why it has been established?

Captain Margesson: I assume that my hon. and gallant Friend is referring to the Directorate of Investigation and Statistics, which was formed in April, 1940, in order to undertake inquiries into questions of administrative organisation and to assist in the compilation of statistics. The Directorate is administered, under the Permanent Under-Secretary, by a Director and a Deputy-Director.

Sir T. Moore: Has this organisation anything to do with the treatment of crime in the Army?

Captain Margesson: Nothing whatever.

PRISONERS OF WAR.

Captain McEwen: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is in a position to make any further statement regarding the whereabouts of the officers in the various camps in Germany who have lately been moved?

Sir A. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can ascertain through the Protecting Power the reason for the transfer of British prisoners of war from certain camps, namely, Oflags V.B., VII.C, VII.D and IXA, and to which camps these men have been sent, as the British Red Cross, which is overwhelmed with inquiries from relatives has, though it has repeatedly tried, been unable to obtain this information from the International Red Cross at Geneva?

Sir W. Davison: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he can inform the House as to the removal of large numbers of British officer prisoners of war from their previous camps to unknown destinations; whether such prisoners of war were compelled to leave behind them most of their personal property as well as Red Cross food parcels, in breach of Article 26 of the Geneva Convention;


when were such removals reported to the War Office; and what steps are being taken to ascertain the present addresses of these officers, who are, meantime, cut off from receiving Red Cross parcels and supplies of food and clothing?

Captain Margesson: Information was received from the Protecting Power on 17th October that British prisoners from Oflags VII.C and VII.D had been transferred to Oflag VLB. The British Red Cross Society were at once informed of this move In order that immediate arrangements might be made by the International Red Cross Committee for parcels to be sent to the new camp. Unofficial reports have also been received that prisoners are to be moved from Oflags V.B and IX.A, and further inquiries with regard to these two camps are being made through the Protecting Power. I have no information that any prisoners of war have had to leave their property behind. Such reports as I have received suggest that arrangements have been made for prisoners' personal property and Red Cross parcels to be despatched to their new camp and for the issue of special cards in order that prisoners may notify the International Red Cross Committee of their new address on arrival.

Captain McEwen: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not agree that in view of this incident it would appear that the. usefulness of the Protecting Power is somewhat limited owing to the fact that it is no longer regarded as being strictly a neutral, and might it not be a good thing to ask the Portuguese Government to act as assistant Protecting Power?

Captain Margesson: No, I could not accept that statement at all. We owe a great deal to the Protecting Power for the work it has done.

Sir A. Knox: Has the right hon. and gallant Gentleman obtained a list of the names of the prisoners who have been transferred, so as to enable their relatives to send them special parcels?

Captain Margesson: No, Sir; I have not yet been able to obtain a list.

Sir A. Knox: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman try to obtain it, because some of these officers are very ill?

Sir A. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for War whether any consideration has been given to the possibility of the conclusion of an agreement under Section 72 of the International Convention for the transfer to a neutral country of prisoners of war in good health who have been a long time in captivity?

Captain Margesson: I do not think it desirable to make any statement on this subject.

Sir W. Davison: asked the Secretary of State for War what is approximately the present number of British prisoners of war; whether he is satisfied that an International Red Cross inspectorate of four persons is adequate for the supervision of 3,000,000 prisoners; and what is the result of recent representations made to the Protecting Power with regard to a necessary increase in their inspectorate?

Captain Margesson: The total number of prisoners of war from all parts of the Empire in enemy hands is estimated to be about 66,000. I have no knowledge of the numbers of prisoners of war of other nationalities, nor of the camp inspectorate system so far as they are concerned. I am informed that, for the purpose of visiting camps in which British prisoners are detained, 10 inspectors have been appointed by the Protecting Power and six by the International Red Cross Committee. No representations have been made to the Protecting Power with regard to an increase in the number of their inspectors, which is considered adequate.

Sir W. Davison: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman think that six inspectors under the International Red Cross are sufficient to supervise and inspect camps in which there are about 3,000,000 persons of different nationalities; and that 10 inspectors under the Protecting Power for our 66,000 prisoners are enough?

Captain Margesson: As I say, I do not know what arrangements are made about other prisoners of war, and I am dealing at the moment only with those belonging to the Empire. I think that the visits by the Protecting Power authorities are about every five or six weeks in each camp and the visits of the International Red Cross Committee about every three months.

Sir W. Davison: While I am glad to hear that the visits are so frequent, may I ask how such frequency is possible with so small an inspectorate?

Mr. Wedgwood: Did the right hon. and gallant Gentleman include Palestinian prisoners, and, if not, will he give the figures?

Captain Margesson: I have not the precise information. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will put a question to me.

Mr. Mander: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will consider the advisability of taking steps to see that all enemy prisoners in our hands are given a full and truthful account of the origins and course of the war, as a beginning of the process of re-education of enemy peoples in general?

Captain Margesson: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. Hannah) on 25th February, of which I am sending him a copy.

Mr. Graham White (for Lieutenant Grey): asked the Secretary of State for War whether he has any information about the alleged shooting of 25 British prisoners of war at a camp near Munster in Germany?

Captain Margesson: According to my latest information, there are no British prisoners of war in the neighbourhood of Munster, and the suggestion that 25 prisoners have been executed there is entirely without foundation.

RUDOLF HESS.

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will give in detail the daily food supplied to Rudolf Hess guards?

Captain Margesson: The guards in question receive the home service ration scale. I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate full particulars of this scale in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Thorne: I take it for granted that when I see the details of the food they will show that the man in question is getting more food than thousands of the internees?

Following is the scale:


Item.
Scale a Day.



0z


Meat, fresh or frozen
6


Bread
10


Flour
2


Rice
3/7


Oatmeal
6/7


Bacon
12/7


Offal or Sausages, Beef
15/7


Cheese
4/7


Tinned Salmon
3/7


Cake (slab)
4 (once a week)


Jam
1


Dried Fruits
4/7


Margarine
12/7


Tea
2/7


Cocoa
3/16


Sugar
2


Milk, fresh
7½fl. oz.


Potatoes
13


Fresh Vegetables
8(five times a week)


Dried Peas, Beans or Lentils
2 (twice a week)


Salt
⅜

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

INFANTILE MORTALITY.

Mrs. Hardie: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland in what districts in Scotland has the largest percentage increase in infant mortality taken place?

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): The latest figures available are those for the first six months of this year. Comparing these rates with the average of the rates for the first six months of the three years 1937, 1938 and 1939, the burghs showing the largest percentage increases are Dumbarton, Rutherglen, Hamilton and Paisley. Considerable increases are found in the counties of Nairn and Sutherland, but the small number of births in the first six months of 1941 renders any comparison unreliable.

Mrs. Hardie: In view of this high rate of infantile mortality in Scotland, may I ask whether the Department are taking any steps to investigate the causes or are doing anything to prevent this terrible wastage of child life?

Mr. Johnston: The answer to both parts of the Supplementary Question is in the affirmative.

Mr. Kirkwood: What is the reason for the increase of infantile mortality in Dumbartonshire?

Mr. Johnston: I am afraid that the Supplementary Question would entail a very long supplementary answer, but, in my view, the increase arises from a very large number of causes, all directly attributable to war conditions.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the alarming statement made by the Secretary of State for Scotland, will he arrange for a series of meetings to discuss the matter with Scottish Members, to be held in St. Andrew's House, Edinburgh?

TUBERCULOSIS.

Mrs. Hardie: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland in what districts in Scotland has the increase in notified cases of tuberculosis taken place?

Mr. Johnston: As the answer involves a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate a table showing the incidence of tuberculosis in the five Civil Defence districts in Scotland, in the years 1938, 1939, 1940, and the first 41 weeks of 1941.

Mrs. Hardie: Is the Minister aware that the rate has gone up in Glasgow by 20 per cent., and that the increase has been mainly among the young working population; and does he not think that steps ought to be taken to look into the causes with a view to remedying them, particularly as the figures are still rising?

Tuberculosis Cases Notified in Regions of Scotland during the years 1938, 1930, 1940 and part of 1941.


Region.
1938
1939
1940
41 Weeks to 11th October, 1941.


Tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis.
Tuberculosis.


Pulmonary
Non-Pulmonary
Total
Pulmonary
Non-Pulmonary
Total
Pulmonary
Non-Pulmonary
Total
Pulmonary
Non- Pulmonary
Total


Northern Area.
149
124
273
174
100
274
165
88
253
129
79
208


North-Eastern Area..
238
251
489
248
239
487
283
238
521
231
198
429


Eastern Area
498
386
884
449
342
791
531
318
849
442
264
706


South-Eastern Area.
674
397
1,071
591
309
900
681
366
1,047
564
308
872


Western Area.
3,234
1,614
4,848
3,195
1,450
4,645
3,540
1,494
5,034
3,182
1,139
4,321


Grand Total
4,793
2,772
7,565
4,657
2,440
7,097
5,200
2,504
7,704
4,548
1,988
6,536

Mr. Johnston: Yes, Sir; we are taking what steps are available, although they are very limited, to examine this matter. The Medical Research Council have had their attention drawn to the matter.

Mr. Kirkwood: Will the Secretary of State for Scotland inform the House whether he can give any reason for the increase in tuberculosis since the war began?

Mr. Johnston: I should say that housing difficulties, evacuation difficulties, blackout difficulties, war strain and a number of other causes have contributed to the increase.

Mrs. Hardie: Why should the increase be so much greater in Scotland than in England, where conditions arising out of the war arc even worse?

Dr. Edith Summerskill: If the reasons given by the Secretary of State are right, why should the increase be larger among women?

Mr. Johnston: I cannot give an adequate answer within the normal limits, of a reply to a Supplementary Question. I can only say that it is possible that the strain of war conditions is greater upon women than upon men.

Mr. Kirkwood: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that he is using all the means in his power to counteract these causes? I am satisfied that it is not so.

Following is the table:

SCHOOL ATTENDANCE.

Mr. McNeil: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will give the number of children on the registers of public elementary schools in Scotland who are in attendance at school for five hours or more per day, and the number in attendance for less than five hours per day?

Mr. Johnston: I regret that the precise information asked for is not available. Approximately 84 per cent. of the children in primary schools in Scotland are now receiving full-time education.

Mr. McNeil: Has the Minister any hope of getting the other 16 per cent. back to decent conditions?

Mr. Johnston: There, again, I can give only a problematical answer. So far as it is possible to get useful buildings with the greatest possible despatch, that will be done.

WAR-TIME NURSERIES.

Mr. McNeil: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of local authorities which have submitted plans for war-time nurseries under Circular D.H.S. No. 146/1941, 9th June, 1941; the number of schemes which have now been approved; the number of nurseries which are now in operation; and the number of children being cared for in there nurseries?

Mr. Johnston: Ten local authorities in Scotland have submitted definite proposals for the establishment of war-time nurseries, and these proposals, which provide for 39 nurseries, have all been approved. Of the 39, two, each accommodating 40 children, are in full operation, and 14 which were already in partial operation at the date of the circular are being brought into fuller operation.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Is the Minister satisfied that 39 nursery schools in the whole of Scotland really meet the need?

Mr. Johnston: No, Sir, and that is why we are pressing on.

AGRICULTURAL WORKERS' WAGES.

Mr. Sloan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the serious discontent amongst Scottish agricultural workers at the low rate of wages paid them in comparison with the

wages earned by workers in other industries; and does he intend to consult with the Wages Board in Scotland with a view to instituting a higher minimum wage for agricultural workers in Scotland?

Mr. Johnston: I am aware of the disparities referred to in the first part of the Question. Agricultural wages committees, however, are now engaged in revising existing minimum wage rates. It is preferable that this statutory machinery for the fixation of wages should be allowed to function. This, I understand, is the attitude of both farmers and farm workers.

Mr. Sloan: Will the right hon. Gentleman state when he is likely to receive a report from the wages boards, because agricultural workers in Scotland are showing serious signs of discontent?

Mr. Johnston: I cannot answer as to a precise date upon which an announcement will be made, but it will not be unduly delayed.

AGRICULTURAL LAND SPECULATION.

Wing-Commander James: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, having regard to the fact that such a record could be easily kept, he will instruct his Department to keep a record of all purchases of agricultural land in Scotland of over, say, 200 acres that are made not for occupation but for prompt resale; and whether he will thereafter publish periodical lists of the agents and principals concerned in such transactions?

Mr. Johnston: The question of dealing with speculation in agricultural land is presently being considered by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and myself. But the remedy, I am afraid, is not that suggested in my hon. and gallant Friend's Question. I could only obtain particulars of purchases from the Register of Sasines, possibly at considerable periods after the transactions had been effected.

Wing Commander James: Will my right hon. Friend look into the case, of which I gave him some particulars last week, of a speculator who recently received unfavourable attention from this House in connection with a munitions scandal, and who lately bought a large agricultural estate in the south of Scotland and resold it within a few days, and will he not see whether he can check this type of monstrous speculation?

Mr. Johnston: I would like to thank my hon. and gallant Friend for giving me particulars of that case. We have already caused urgent inquiries to be made into the facts.

Mr. Neil Maclean: Will the right hon. Gentleman also make a record of all the land taken from the people by the enclosures?

SCOTTISH AFFAIRS (DISCUSSION).

Mr. Sloan (for Mr. Stephen): asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will consider introducing legislation to provide for statutory meetings of Scottish Members of Parliament in Scotland with powers of legislation for Scottish affairs, including control of finance, or, if not, in view of the inadequate time for the discussion of Scottish government in the Imperial Parliament, what steps he proposes to take to remedy the present position of affairs?

Mr. Johnston: My own views upon the desirability of more adequate time being found for the discussion of Scottish affairs are well known, but I am persuaded that it is not possible during the grave perils and anxieties of the war emergency to raise great constitutional issues such as are indicated in the hon. Member's Question. I hope, however, that it may be found possible to secure more time for the discussion of the Scottish Estimates next year than we had allotted to us in 1941.

Mr. Gallacher: Can the Minister give any reason why we should not have a meeting of the Scottish Grand Committee at St. Andrew's House next week in order to discuss the very urgent matters that confront the Scottish people, particularly infant mortality and tuberculosis?

Mr. Johnston: No question that involves legislation can be dealt with at this moment; and I am advised that the suggestion would involve legislation.

Mr. Gallacher: It would not involve legislation if we discussed means for dealing with infant mortality and tuberculosis. Cannot we have a meeting next week? If not, why not?

Mr. Johnston: It is the summoning of the meeting at St. Andrew's House that would require legislation.

SCHOOL MEALS SERVICE (DEVELOPMENT).

Mr. G. A. Morrison: (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he proposes to take any steps to develop the school meals service in Scotland with a view to better nutrition of school children?

Mr. Johnston: Yes, Sir. I hope to secure an immediate and substantial development of this service by arranging for advantage to be taken of facilities provided by the Minister of Food, and, where these are not available, by encouraging education authorities to make their own provision. For these purposes the financial aid available to education authorities is being increased. Parents who are able to pay will be expected to pay. Scots law presently permits food to be provided for necessitous children only when the individual child is unable, by reason of lack of food, to take full advantage of the education provided. But malnutrition should be prevented, and a short Bill, designed to give education authorities power to supply food free of charge to necessitous cases without waiting for evidence of malnutrition, will be introduced in the near future.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

RETURNED MINERS (EQUIPMENT).

Mr. Sloan: asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware of the difficulty and expense incurred by workers transferred to the mining industry in securing outfit of suitable clothes and tools; and whether he will consider the possibility of making a grant to enable them to secure this equipment?

The Secretary for Mines (Mr. David Grenfell): I am not aware that difficulty has arisen in actual supply: special arrangements were made for supply of working clothes free of coupon, and the few minor difficulties which arose regarding supply of tools were readily surmounted. Colliery owners were asked to make advances to men who needed them.

Mr. Sloan: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that many of these men have been compulsorily transferred and have to face this expenditure before they can start work, and is he prepared to reconsider the matter?

Mr. Grenfell: My hon. Friend knows quite well that the equipment required by men who have been several years away from the industry varies very much. So far as I know, we have met the hard cases.

Mrs. Tate: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I recently sent him details of the case of a miner who was asked to report at a pit and was only given one day's notice and had to spend £3 out of his own pocket to obtain clothing and instruments?

Mr. Grenfell: The men's needs are varied; men who have been away six months may have all their gear, while men who have been away longer periods may have lost part of their gear. We take every case on its merits.

Mr. Gordon Macdonald: Have not these men been put to expense already in the industries in which they have been working, and in so far as they have to provide new kit will my hon. Friend provide for them?

Mr. Grenfell: We have given instructions to the owners to that effect.

SOUTH WALES (MINERS' TRANSFERENCE).

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: (for Mr. James Griffiths) asked the Secretary for Mines whether a limit has been put to the expansion of the industry in South Wales; whether, in consequence, men are being transferred to other areas; and whether he can state the reasons for this action?

Mr. Grenfell: The arrangements for the return of men to the mining industry under the registration scheme have been under continuous review by the Coal Production Council, on which both sides of the industry are represented. While it was decided that as far as possible men should be allotted to the districts, or even to the pits, in which they formerly worked, it was impossible to disregard the question of transport facilities for the coal; otherwise, men who had been required to return to the industry might well find themselves idle at times during the coming winter. On this account, it was necessary to limit the number of men to be re-employed in South Wales, and in a number of cases suitable men have been transferred to the Midland coalfields, where coal transport presents less difficulty and the men could, therefore, give

better service to the country in these critical times.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: Does not the Minister's reply indicate that transport difficulties in Wales are bringing about a reduced output of coal?

Mr. Grenfell: Not yet.

Mr. A. Bevan: Does not the Minister's reply mean that an area which has suffered already from economic conditions over which it has no control is to be further handicapped for the sake of districts which already had artificial assistance?

Mr. Grenfell: My hon. Friend knows that there has been already considerable rehabilitation of the industries in South Wales since the collapse of the export trade 12 months ago.

ACCIDENT, BULLCROFT MAIN COLLIERY.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary for Mines whether he has any information to give to the House regarding the explosion at Bullcroft Main Colliery on Sunday.

Mr. Grenfell: I regret to have to report that an explosion occurred at Bullcroft Main Colliery on Sunday morning which caused the deaths of six men, all trained members of a colliery rescue team which was on duty at the mine that morning. I am awaiting further details of the circumstances, and will again report to the House when these are available. I feel sure the House will desire to join in expressing sympathy with the relatives of the men who lost their lives.

SOAP MANUFACTURE (GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS).

Mr. Wootton-Davies: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food whether it is his intention to continue to charge manufacturers for materials used in production of soap for Government contracts £4 per ton more than they charge for civilian requirements?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Major Lloyd George): There is no difference in the prices charged by my Department for oils and fats used for soap for Government contracts and those used for soap for civilian requirements.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: If I send my right hon. and gallant Friend particulars of cases where soapmakers are charged £4 extra per ton for materials used for Government contracts, will he look into them?

Major Lloyd George: I have had information about the sort of case my hon. Friend has in mind. It is an arrangement made among the members of the Soap Makers' Federation themselves.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: Is it not a fact that materials used for Government contracts cost £4 a ton more than those used for other contracts?

Major Lloyd George: It is a very complicated question, and I can explain to my hon. Friend the procedure adopted by the Soap Makers' Federation.

EVAPORATED MILK (DISTRIBUTION).

Mr. Rostron Duckworth: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food why, in view of his undertaking that if the trade would undertake to supply priority consumers he would restrict all United States of America evaporated milk for distribution to the public to milk distributors as compensation for the loss the trade would incur in redirecting the turnover of milk, he has now decided to entrust such milk for wholesale distribution to grocer-wholesalers and not to wholesale milk distributors?

Mr. R. Morgan: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food why, in view of the unsatisfactory results arising from the official mixing of the sale of commodities by firms which have not previously handled them, he proposes to distribute evaporated milk, to be sold at the door to supplement liquid milk, through the wholesale grocers who have hitherto only sold condensed milk in across-the-counter trade?

Major Lloyd George: United States evaporated milk will be handled by the normal trade channels accustomed to deal in condensed milk, except at the point of sale to the consumer. The decision that it should be sold through the retail dairyman rather than the retail grocer was taken solely to ensure that it is distributed to non-priority consumers in direct

association with liquid milk. There is no question of compensation for loss of turnover, as the whole of the supply of liquid milk available during the winter will continue to be handled by the wholesale and retail milk distributors.

ASSISTANCE BOARD (INQUIRIES).

Mr. Wootton-Davies: asked the Minister of Labour whether, when cases affecting the activities of the Unemployment Assistance Board are referred by Members to his Department, he can state the exact procedure followed in making inquiries; and whether he will consider short-circuiting much of the letter-writing entailed so as to relieve the pressure on the staff?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): My right hon. Friend has already taken steps to reduce the amount of correspondence involved in dealing with such inquiries by arranging that, unless an inquiry raises a point of special importance, the reply is to be sent direct by the Board to the Member concerned. In dealing with inquiries regarding individual cases the Board must of course obtain the necessary information from their local officers but every effort is made to reduce such correspondence to the minimum.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: Cannot my hon. Friend make arrangements to send these inquiries direct from London to the area concerned, rather than through half a dozen offices where copies have to be made each time?

Mr. Tomlinson: I am not aware that inquiries are sent through any more channels than are absolutely necessary.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: Perhaps I may send my hon. Friend some details.

ARMED FORCES (PENSIONS AND GRANTS).

Mr. Martin: asked the Minister of Pensions why 2013426 Sapper A. Holloway, of S.M.E. (T.T. Wing), Brompton Barracks, Chatham, was refused assistance by the War Service Grants Committee on behalf of his wife who is an expectant mother?

The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley): This is a case of the kind to which I referred in the Debate on 16th October where the low wages earned before service precluded any grant. Under the improved arrangements described in Cmd. Paper 6318 I am now in a position to make a grant and this will be put into payment as early as possible.

LIMITATION OF CHAIN STORES.

Mr. De la B¸re: asked the Prime Minister whether he will find time for a Debate on the Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for Evesham relating to the limitation of chain stores?

[That this House sympathises with the difficulties experienced by the small retail shopkeepers prior to the outbreak of hostilities, and additionally increased as a result of the. war; is of opinion that the small shopkeepers form a valuable and constitutional support to the country, both in times of peace and war; urges on the Government the introduction of legislation to protect and assist these people by licensing the chain stores throughout the country, by restricting the number of branches in each locality, and the variety of articles sold by the existing branches to the public to those articles which they were selling prior to the outbreak of war; realises that the interests of the middle classes and tradesmen are insufficiently represented in the House of Commons; believes that had this representation been adequate a limitation would have been imposed on chain store undertakings of every kind in the interests of the middle class traders and producers before this; and is of opinion that the problem will become more acute.]

The Lord President of the Council (Sir John Anderson): My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister regrets that it is not possible to provide a special opportunity for a Debate on the Motion standing in the name of my hon. Friend. An opportunity will no doubt present itself for a discussion on this subject at a later date.

Mr. De la B¸re: Would my right hon. Friend assure the House that he appreciates the urgent need that the situation should be dealt with speedily, in view of the fact that the livelihood of over 1,000,000 small shopkeepers is at stake?

Sir J. Anderson: I cannot help thinking that the importance of the small shopkeeper in the economy of our social structure is pretty well recognised. There will be an opportunity at no distant date to debate this matter.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (SITTINGS).

Mr. Martin: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the insufficient time now available for discussion of questions raised on the Adjournment of the House, he will consider the possibility of sitting one extra day each month on which a number of such questions might be dealt with?

Sir J. Anderson: I do not think that my hon. Friend's suggestion would commend itself to the House. The present arrangements are elastic and would appear to meet the general convenience of hon. Members. Many subjects have been raised on the Motion for the Adjournment during the Session. Whole days have been given for debate, in addition to the opportunities which occur when Government Business has finished early.

Mr. Martin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a widespread feeling in the House that the hours during which the House sits at present stifle proper democratic expression, and will the Prime Minister consider whether he cannot offer alternative facilities at some time if this suggestion does not commend itself to him?

Sir J. Anderson: The hon. Member will recognise that the normal hours are frequently suspended where there is a special reason for taking that course.

Sir Joseph Lamb: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that while many people think that Ministers should be expected to attend here in the House, they are in fact employed elsewhere in their Departments?

Mr. Mander: asked the Prime Minister whether, in connection with any Adjournment of the House in future, he will consider the advisability of following the precedent of 19th December last, when a Resolution was passed in Public Session with regard to the Christmas Adjournment to an unstated date?

Sir J. Anderson: My hon. Friend's suggestion has been noted and will receive further consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

SUBSIDIES.

Mr. Tinker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is following up the recommendations submitted in the White Paper [Cmd. 6294], on the stabilisation of prices, and arranging where increases are necessary to provide a subsidy to meet it; is he aware that coal prices in Lancashire have increased by 1s. 8d. per ton; and will he consider granting a subsidy in this case?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): The Government are adhering to the policy stated in my Budget speech and in the White Paper. As I have previously explained, this does not imply that a subsidy must be provided in every individual case where an increase in costs would justify an increase in the price of goods or services. An increase of 1s. 6d. (not 1s. 8d.) a ton on Lancashire coal prices has recently been approved. I do not consider that its general effect will be such as to justify the institution of a subsidy on pit-head prices.

Mr. Tinker: Seeing that price stabilisation has been approved and recognised, is it not time that action was taken on the lines suggested in my Question? If the Government do not do that, prices will rise and people will demand increases in wages, and poor people, old age pensioners, cannot afford to pay the price increases. This is a grand opportunity for the Government to deal with all essential commodities, and I hope they will take advantage of it.

Sir H. Williams: Is the Purchase Tax part of the subsidy scheme for reducing the cost of living?

Sir K. Wood: I seem to have heard that before from my hon. Friend.

Sir H. Williams: I am still awaiting my right hon. Friend's answer.

WAR LOANS (BANKS AND INSURANCE COMPANIES).

Mr. Sloan: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what sums have been contributed to Government loans by the various banks and their branches and by the various insurance companies and their branches, respectively, during War

Weapons Weeks; and what is the total sum loaned from the various banks and insurance companies to the Government since the outbreak of war?

Sir K. Wood: In reply to the first part of the Question, I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by the very large expenditure of time and labour which would be necessary to examine all subscriptions during each War Weapons Week. As regards the last part of the Question, I gave certain information as to the position of the banks up to December, 1940, in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) on 4th February, 1941, and if it is so desired, I should be ready to bring that information up to date. Similar information as to the position of the insurance companies is not available. I am, however, satisfied that the insurance companies as well as the banks are supporting Government war issues to the best of their ability.

Mr. Stokes: With regard to the first part of the Question, is there any difficulty in getting these insurance companies and banks to make their own returns instead of the Treasury? It is perfectly simple, but there is not the will to do it.

Sir K. Wood: I have given the total amount so far as the banks are concerned. I would be prepared to bring it up to date.

Mr. Gallacher: Would it not be of value to get these figures, to show that the banks and insurance companies are carrying on a profitable racket?

Sir K. Wood: They are giving very valuable service.

TREASURY CONTROL.

Sir Stanley Reed: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the peace-time system of Treasury control has been adapted to war-time requirements; and whether he has any statement to make?

Sir K. Wood: Yes, Sir. Any suggestions to the contrary are not well founded. I doubt if the wide differences between the war-time organisation of the Treasury and the traditional peace-time arrangements have been generally appreciated. A primary function of the Treasury in the midst of a vast conflict is


to ensure that money requisite for the successful prosecution of the war is available without delay as it is required. Delegated powers are given to the War Departments accordingly within limits agreed with the Treasury, and thus over a wide field Departments have authority to incur expenditure without prior reference to the Treasury. Where reference is made to the Treasury, there exist special arrangements, brought into operation before the outbreak of war, designed to secure the utmost expedition by the substitution of informal discussion for official correspondence, wherever possible. I have every reason to believe that those arrangements are working satisfactorily. None of this is inconsistent with another function of the Treasury, that of enjoining and seeking to secure the elimination of avoidable extravagance and waste in war-time expenditure. The expenditure of money implies the expenditure of labour, material and productive capacity, and as our resources are not unlimited, it is necessary to ensure that the best use is made of them. The war-time organisation of the Treasury has been framed with these two objects in view.

Sir S. Reed: Does the Chancellor agree that any undue relaxation of Treasury control, leading to unlimited expenditure, while there is a limited measure of saving, would inevitably mean that dreadful state which even the Governor of the Bank of England dared not name?

Sir K. Wood: It is a matter of holding the balance between the two considerations I have mentioned in my reply.

ARMED FORCES (DUTY FREE GIFTS).

Mr. Stokes: asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether arrangements can be made so as to permit the entry of small presents of cigarettes, etc., duty free, into this country from relatives and friends in Eire addressed to Irishmen serving in the Armed Forces of the Crown?

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Captain Crookshank): At present, where a man serving in the United Kingdom Forces proves to the satisfaction of the Customs that he is a national of Eire, duty is repaid on any parcels sent to him. Payment and repayment of duty would, however, be avoided if an organisation

could be set up in this country which would undertake the delivery of gifts and would verify the nationality of the addressee. Duty-free entry would then be sanctioned for gifts sent through that organisation to nationals of Eire serving in our Forces. Such arrangements have already been made in the case of nationals of other Dominions so serving.

Mr. Stokes: Arising out of that decision, does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman mean that a soldier receiving a small packet of cigarettes has to apply through the normal channels for the rebate of 2s. 2d., or whatever it is? Does it not reduce the thing rather to an absurdity?

Captain Crookshank: No, there is a way out, if an organisation were set up, as has been done by the other Dominions.

Mr. Stokes: Who is going to set up the organisation?

Captain Crookshank: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to do so.

HOUSE OF COMMONS REFRESHMENT DEPARTMENT.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: asked the hon. Member for Dulwich, as Chairman of the Kitchen Committee, whether he will consider the advisability of adopting a British Restaurants policy for all meals served in Members' dining rooms and staff canteens in the Palace of Westminster, with uniform prices for meals and standard menus?

Mr. Bracewell Smith: I am sure the Kitchen Committee will be glad to consider the suggestion made by the hon. Member, but I would not advise the adoption of the British Restaurants policy for the Members' dining rooms if this involved the employment of voluntary or cheap labour, or the supply of free equipment. Experience has also shown that Members still desire some variety in the bill of fare.

Mr. Walkden: Will the hon. Gentleman accept the invitation I gave him some days ago to visit some of the pit canteens which are not staffed by voluntary labour; and, in view of our urgent appeal for the limitation of spending and for economy, would it not have a beneficial influence on the community and all caterers, club and restaurant proprietors, to adopt the same policy?

Mr. Speaker: That is a matter of opinion.

RAILWAY AGREEMENT.

Sir John Mellor: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport, whether he is now able to state the full terms of the arrangements with the railway companies for Government control?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Colonel Llewellin): This matter is, I understand, to be debated on the Motion for the Adjournment on the next Sitting Day, when I hope to be able to give the House any information which may be required to supplement that contained in the Command Paper.

Sir J. Mellor: Can the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give an assurance that the outline contained in the White Paper covers all the points of substance in the draft?

Colonel Llewellin: All the points of substance are in the draft agreement.

POST-WAR PLANNING (UTHWATT REPORT).

Mr. Stokes: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Buildings, when the final report of the Uthwatt Committee will be available for Members of this House?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Buildings (Mr. Hicks): My Noble Friend has inquired of the Chairman, who cannot yet say when the final report will be ready. It is unlikely to be before Christmas. The Committee is proceeding with the examination of these complicated matters as quickly as possible.

Mr. Stokes: Is it not a fact that the report has already achieved its final draft form, and is being held up in the hon. Gentleman's Department?

Mr. Hicks: That would certainly be a wrong assumption.

Sir J. Nall: Was this report, like many others, drafted before the Committee began to meet?

PUBLIC ENTERTAINMENTS (CLOSING HOURS),

Mr. Colman: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether in any fixing of the curfew arrangements for the coming winter, he will ensure that the parties responsible consult in advance the theatrical industry, so as to obtain their views as to the appropriate hour for terminating performances?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Mr. Mabane): As stated in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. James Hall) on 16th October, it is not intended to fix early closing hours for places of public entertainment unless heavy raiding demands it. Then advance consultation could not always be guaranteed. Managements will be consulted wherever possible.

SALVAGED TIMBER (DISTRIBUTION).

Sir T. Moore: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works and Buildings, why much of the salved but worthless timber now stacked in places under his control is not either being distributed free or sold to poorer people in anticipation of fuel shortage during the winter?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security (Miss Wilkinson): I have been asked to reply. Timber from demolished buildings which is not usable for any purpose other than kindling is available to the public free of charge. Local authorities were empowered as long ago as December, 1940, to make arrangements whereby householders could be enabled to collect such firewood for their personal use. In many areas, however, the public have not taken advantage of the facilities offered, and my right hon. Friend recently suggested to local authorities that where dumps are not being cleared quickly they should consider the distribution of firewood to consumers' doors for a small charge to cover the costs involved.

Sir T. Moore: Would the hon. Lady take steps to secure publicity for this statement by means of the B.B.C. or some such way? Obviously people do not realise the benefits to which they are entitled.

Miss Wilkinson: I hope this Question and the answer will give the desired publicity.

Mr. G. Strauss: Could any steps be taken to prevent the distribution of verminous wood to households?

Miss Wilkinson: We have already provided for that, so that any salvaged timber seen to be verminous must be burned on the site.

MERCHANT NAVY (CURRENCY FACILITIES).

Sir Stanley Reed: (for Lieut.-Colonel Boles) asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport what arrangements have been made, in view of the number of British ships using ports on the western Atlantic seaboard, to enable their crews to obtain local currency?

Colonel Llewellin: Members of the crews of British ships can obtain advances in local currency from the masters, who have discretion to make advances, and no special arrangements have proved to be necessary.

TUBERCULOSIS, WALES.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: (for Mr. J. Griffiths) asked the Minister of Health the mortality rate from tuberculosis in Wales among females, in the age-groups 15 to 20 years and 20 to 25 years respectively, in the past five years?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Horsbrugh): The death-rate per million female population in Wales between the ages 15 and 25 was as follows: —


1935
…
…
…
1,749


1936
…
…
…
1,737


1937
…
…
…
1,566


1938 
…
…
…
1,423


1939
…
…
…
1,454


Figures are not prepared for the separate age-groups 15 to 20 and 20 to 25; the corresponding 1940 record is not yet available.

Mr. Hughes: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that there has been no increase in deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis in these groups in Wales during the last year?

Miss Horsbrugh: The provisional figures for England and Wales as a whole have been given in reply to a Question. The whole subject, I think, will come up in the Debate on the Adjournment to-day.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: Are these figures related to the under-payment of women in industry?

Miss Horsbrugh: Suggestions as to the reasons will perhaps come up in the Debate to-day.

SCHOOL MEALS AND MILK SERVICES (DEVELOPMENT).

Mr. Lees-Smith: (by Private Notice) asked the President of the Board of Education whether he has any statement to make about the development of the school meals and milk services with a view to ensuring the proper nutrition of children?

The President of the Board of Education (Mr. Butler): Yes, Sir. The House will no doubt wish to see that a high standard of nutrition among school children is secured and maintained under war-time conditions. An active campaign for the expansion of the provision of meals for school children has been conducted by my Department during the past year and has resulted in doubling the number of children receiving mid-day meals daily. In consultation with my noble Friend the Minister of Food, I have now decided on certain important measures which I hope will secure an immediate and large development of this service. I have accordingly obtained the Chancellor of the Exchequer's approval to an increase of 10 per cent. in the rate of grant on authorities' expenditure on provision of meals, subject to an overriding maximum grant of 95 per cent. I am further raising the minimum rate of grant, which now stands at 50 per cent., to 70 per cent. These steps will go far to remove any financial obstacle to expansion and will, I hope, lead to a great increase and level-ling-up of provision in all areas.
In the second place, hon. Members will be glad to hear that my noble Friend is placing at the disposal of local education authorities the facilities provided by the chain of cooking depots which are being set up near the large centres of population. Authorities will now be able to obtain


from the depots substantial meals which will be delivered to schools or school canteens in the neighbourhood in large and increasing numbers.
In the third place, I aim at securing an increase in the proportion of children receiving milk under the milk in schools scheme from some 60 per cent., where it now stands, to as near 100 per cent, as may be possible. To this end it has been decided that the whole of the cost of the provision of free milk to necessitous children and of the handling of the milk in the schools shall be reimbursed by the Exchequer. With the help of my noble Friend other measures are being taken to facilitate the purchase of equipment for cooking and dining, to ensure that the kinds of food which are most necessary and suitable for children are available in adequate quantities for school canteens, and to remove various difficulties which have stood in the way of a more rapid expansion. The efficacy of these measures will depend on the energetic support of local education authorities and on the active co-operation of teachers, who have shown themselves ready and willing to participate in all developments which are designed for the benefit of the children committed to their charge.

Mr. Thorne: Can the Minister say whether the schoolchildren will be affected in any way during the long vacation?

Mr. Butler: We have had the problem in mind. There is already provision for holiday milk, but, of course, these proposals affect chiefly the provision of meals and milk at schools.

Mr. Lindsay: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that there is a proper allocation of materials such as steel and timber for the provision of these canteens, which everyone welcomes; and will he consider whether there can be some extra provision for welfare in the schools, in view of this great additional burden of providing milk and meals in the canteens, because teachers at present find it extremely difficult to perform the detailed work now being put upon them?

Mr. Butler: As regards the first part of the question, this is more a question of providing the equipment necessary for meals than buildings. The building normally used will be the school. As to

the second part, I am aware that extra burdens will be put upon teachers in regard to the supply of milk, and I am hoping to examine this question closely myself and to say what can be done to enable the teachers to see it through.

Sir J. Lamb: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the provision of meals for children will be confined to a midday meal, or will other arrangements be made in areas where women are working?

Mr. Butler: To provide a midday meal will require so much energy and drive that I think we had better concentrate upon progress with that first.

Mr. McEntee: Is the Minister aware that in some poor areas in and around London large numbers of children have been away, and have come back; and will he give priority for the necessary equipment for feeding these children to enable those who are waiting to be fed, to be supplied with the equipment with which to cook the food?

Mr. Butler: Thanks to the co-operation of my Noble Friend we have arranged to have equipment provided by the Ministry of Food, and this will ease the problem.

Mr. Mander: Does this scheme apply to children over 11 years of age, and, if so, up to what age?

Mr. Butler: It applies to children attending school.

Mr. Mander: Up to any age?

Mr. Butler: Yes, secondary school children as well.

Mr. Messer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the great dissatisfaction that is felt as a result of the supply of milk in bulk, because the teachers have to deal with it and the children have to bring beakers and the whole thing is unhygienic? Has any progress been made with a view to getting back to the one-third pint bottle per child?

Sir Percy Hurd: Is it not the fact that you cannot get the one-third pint bottle?

Mr. Butler: One hon. Member has answered the other. We cannot get the one-third pint bottles, so where supplies run out the milk has to be dealt with in


bulk, but I will do my best to deal with the points that the hon. Member has raised.

Miss Cazalet: May I ask whether my right hon. Friend does not think that in small outlying villages it is just as necessary for children to be fed as in industrial areas, and will he consider the provision of mobile canteens in order to reach these children?

Mr. Butler: We will consider everything, but I want to get progress made with the provision of meals for as many children as possible first of all.

Mr. R. J. Taylor: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the provision of meals will apply to the J.I.C. people?

Mr. Butler: The juvenile instruction centres are under the Ministry of Labour, but junior technical schools are under me, and we will certainly do our best to make provision wherever children are at school.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: Is the Minister aware that one of the difficulties where central cooking systems are set up will be the provision of vehicles to keep the food hot, and what arrangements are being made to ensure hot meals that really should be hot but will Hot unless proper vehicles are provided?

Mr. Butler: This difficulty will not be overlooked.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. Lees-Smith: May I ask the Lord President of the Council whether he can make a statement with regard to the form of Business this day?

Sir J. Anderson: I think the House may perhaps like a word of explanation in regard to the Motion which appears on the Paper in the name of my right hon. Friend for the suspension of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House). After we have taken the Committee and remaining stages of the Marriage (Members of His Majesty's Forces) Bill, the Adjournment of the House will be moved. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery) has given notice of his intention to raise the matter of the issue of exit permits to Members of Parliament to-day. We are therefore proposing the Motion

for the suspension of the Rule in order to allow more time for that discussion. I hope that it will be found generally agreeable to the House to close the Debate on the health of the nation so that the discussion on exit permits may begin after about three and a half hours and finish then in a couple of hours' time.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: The Fish Sales (Charges) Order, 1941, is on the Order Paper to-day, and I would like to ask when that Order is likely to be taken?

Sir J. Anderson: I am afraid that I have no information on that Order.

Mr. Stewart: Perhaps my right hon. Friend will give this further explanation? Will it be taken either before or after the Recess?

Major Haden Guest: In view of the statement which has just been made, which means a curtailment of the Debate on health, which is a first-class national issue, may I ask when we shall be able to have a Debate on health, as two hours are certainly not sufficient?

Sir J. Anderson: I assure the House that there is no desire on the part of the Government to curtail the Debate on this important subject, but it may perhaps occur to hon. Members that there will be opportunities to debate this matter again quite soon, if that is desired.

Mr. Bevan: Does not the right hon. Gentleman see the obvious contradiction between frequent and unnecessarily prolonged. Recesses and the severe curtailment of Debates at the present time?

Sir J. Anderson: I do not think that there is any contradiction.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.

Second-Lieutenant Fitzroy Hew Royle Maclean, for the County of Lancaster (Lancaster Division).

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE.

That they give leave to the Lord Beaverbrook to attend in order to his being examined as a witness before the Select Committee appointed by this House on National Expenditure, if his Lordship think fit.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on any Motion for the Adjournment of the House that may be moved by a Minister of the Crown at this day's Sitting be exempted from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)." — [Sic J. Anderson.]

Orders of the Day — MARRIAGE (MEMBERS OF HIS MAJESTY'S FORCES) BILL. [Lords.]

Considered in Committee.

[Colonel CLIFTON BROWN in the Chair.]

Clauses 1 to 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

CLAUSE 5.—(Interpretation, etc.)

Mr. Hannah: I beg to move, in page 4, line 10, at the end, to insert:
( ) Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authorising a marriage that is not entirely bona fide."
I have not the smallest objection to this Bill; indeed, I think it is an admirable Measure in every way, but the point I want to bring up was very well put by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) on the Second Reading. I associate myself with everything he said and do not want to add much to it, but a number of clergy in my own division have pointed out that a good many perhaps rather ill-considered marriages are-taking place at the present time. Possibly the United States—I was living there during the last war—showed a certain amount of wisdom in not recognising for purposes of military allowances any marriage entered into after the relevant Act had been introduced into Congress. Of course, we cannot do anything of that kind. We are committed, and I think rightly committed, to these allowances, but at the same time the nation is undoubtedly rather suspicious and worried by the recognition of women, not married, for these allowances. I think that was unfortunate, and I do not think it would have gone through on a free vote of the House. However. I do not want to press my Amendment. I wish to support the Bill wholeheartedly, but I hope the

Government will make it abundantly clear to the nation that in bringing forward this Bill they have no intention whatever of making marriage easier than it ought to be. We ought to insist that every marriage entered into under this Bill shall be a bona fide, permanent marriage, without any idea whatever of merely taking advantage of military allowances for the time being. So I hope the Government will give the strongest undertaking to the country that they have no intention of lowering the ancient standard of English home life.

Mr. Bellenger: With the spirit of the Amendment I am in entire agreement, but I regret very much that the hon. Member for Bilston (Mr. Hannah) passed some aspersions on those undertaking marriage. As I understood his speech, he said there were many entering into marriage at the present time for the sole purpose, or at any rate the primary purpose, of getting Government allowances. When one considers that the Army and the other Forces have already acknowledged the status of unmarried wives, surely we should do everything in our power to encourage people to get married. So far as I know, there is only one form of marriage in this country, and that is a legal marriage. If we can do anything to encourage young people to get married legally, then I am all for it, and if they do happen to enjoy the benefit of Government allowances while in the young state of bliss, they are entitled to it. Although I can see the purpose of the hon. Gentleman's Amendment, I sincerely hope that he will withdraw it, and with it the aspersion which he seems to have made about the alleged mercenary motives of people entering into marriage.

Mr. Hannah: May I say that I never intended such an aspersion? I want to apologise humbly to the House for having used language that was capable of such interpretation.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir Victor Warrender): I think my hon. Friend the Member for Bilston (Mr. Hannah) made it clear in moving his Amendment that he had no desire to press it. I am grateful for that, because it is not an Amendment which the Government could accept. Indeed, it is not necessary to include the Amendment


in the Bill, because the point which my hon. Friend has so much at heart is already provided for in the opening words of Clause I of the Bill, which say that, where the parties to an intended marriage have duly fulfilled all the conditions required by law, then the marriage may be solemnised in a different building from that in which it was intended it should take place. There is nothing in the Bill which makes it in any degree easier for a soldier, sailor or airman to get married. Indeed, if it does anything, as I said on the Second Reading, it adds to rather than detracts from, the formalities which have to be gone through before a marriage can be legally performed. We in the Services are just as anxious to prevent irregular marriages as any hon. Member of this House.

Mr. Hannah: May I thank the Minister and bee; to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment?

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

First Schedule agreed to.

SECOND SCHEDULE.—(Appropriate authority for purposes of Act.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this be the Second Schedule to the Bill."

Mr. Bellenger: I would like to raise a point in connection with this Schedule. The Parliamentary Secretary will notice that with regard to appropriate authorities the rank is specified in the case of the Army and Air Force. In the case of a man borne on the books of one of His Majesty's ships, however, the appropriate authority is given as the officer commanding the ship, but no rank is given. As some of my hon. Friends may know, not necessarily is a ship's commander always an officer. I have reason to believe that in some cases—on some of the smaller ships —the commander may even be a warrant officer or a chief petty officer. Why has the rank not been specified in this case as in the other cases?

Sir V. Warrender: The reason why no rank is specified in this; case is that the ranks of officers commanding His Majesty's ships may vary along a very wide scale. The officer commanding a ship may be a captain, a commander, a lieutenant-commander, or an officer of more junior rank. I think it is necessary to include the reference to "the officer commanding the ship" for this reason. The whole point of the Measure is to enable a marriage to take place at short notice where there are good grounds for doing so and in certain circumstances the sailor who wished to get married quickly might be placed at some disadvantage as compared with the soldier or the airman. Speaking without having received notice of this point, I do not think my hon. Friend is accurate in saying that the commanding officer in some cases might be a warrant officer. I do not think it likely that a warrant officer would be in command of any of the ships of the Navy certainly such a case would be very rare indeed. I think it may be taken that the commanding officer of a ship would, generally, be of the rank of lieutenant-commander or higher.

Mr. Bellenger: I do not wish to place any obstacle in the way of permission in these cases being granted as quickly as possible, but I would ask the hon. Gentleman to look into this point and to see whether there is not some substance in it. If the Government have thought it necessary to specify the rank of major for this purpose in the case of the Army, it seems to me that they ought to take some corresponding step in the case of the Navy.

Sir V. Warrender: If a case did arise in which an officer of junior rank was the commanding officer of a ship, it would probably be a ship in a flotilla and under the instructions which we should have to issue, we could ensure that in such a case the matter could be referred to an officer of higher rank.

Question, "That this be the Second Schedule to the Bill," put, and agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

HEALTH OF THE NATION.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. James Stuart.]

Dr. Howitt: I am very glad to have the opportunity of speaking in this very important Debate to-day. At a time when the nation is using every ounce of energy in its efforts to achieve victory, no more important subject could arise for discussion than the health of the people. Indeed, if we do not make certain of keeping up our very high standard of health in this country, it will be impossible for us to gain victory over the enemy as quickly as we should. Important as it is, I do not propose to-day to speak on the health of the Services. I will confine my remarks entirely to the health of the civil population, and will deal with the subject under two headings, one, the health of the people during the war, and the other, the health of the people after the war.
During the war, as I think everybody will agree, the health of our people has been surprisingly good. At the beginning of the war we had many fears of what might happen to the health of the people. First, we feared that there would be an enormous number of bombing casualties; we made great preparations for such cases, and many of the beds which we put aside for this purpose have remained unused. Yet everyone will agree that we must prepare for such an eventuality and must remain prepared for it. Then we feared that the health of our workers would suffer severely as a result of working during black-out hours. I am glad to say that this fear, too, has been unfounded, and that the health of our workers has been good. We were also warned that, owing to bombing, we would have a tremendous number of cases of nervous breakdown, but the authorities in this country have been amazed at how few cases of neurosis have occurred among the civil population as a result of bombing. I feel very strongly that this is largely due to the wonderful spirit of our people. If they are asked to face anything, they face it gladly, and there is no question of breaking down or of the development among them of the various forms of neurosis. Lastly, we feared the danger of "Teat epidemics arising from the use of air-raid shelters, but again this

has not materialised, and I think our very sincere thanks are due to the Ministry of Health for the wonderful way in which they have improved the shelters in this country. Our thanks are also due to Lord Horder and his willing workers for the improvements which they have been able to carry out in shelters.
Still, we must be prepared to face all these possibilities. I would warn the House that we must be prepared above all" to face the possibility of epidemics. There is no doubt that epidemics do come in wars, and none of us will ever forget the terrible flu scourge which ran through this country in 1918. I hope that will not happen again, but we should be very remiss if we did not make full preparation for such a catastrophe overtaking us. We have feared and we still fear invasion in this country. In the same way we have feared and still fear the possibility of epidemics and we should be foolish indeed if we did not do everything in our power to ward off invasion should it happen and to deal with epidemics should they come upon us. We must hold on firmly to all those preparations.
When we are speaking of the good health which has been enjoyed by our people during the war, it is a good moment to look at some of the causes of this good health. First, I would mention the enormous improvement which has been made in the last 20 years in our public health services. There is no doubt that our people during recent years have learned a good deal about the simple, elementary rules of health. I assure hon. Members that if they went into the out-patients' department of a London hospital to-day, they would find it a very different place from what it used to be when I was a student. The dirt and squalor of the people 30 years ago were terrible, whereas to-day you can go into the out-patients' department of a hospital in any big city to-day and find that there is a very different story to tell. I am glad to think that the students to-day do not get nearly bitten to death as they used to be in the old days. Another cause of good health among the people is the great improvement which has, undoubtedly, taken place in housing since the last war. I am not saying that housing conditions in this country are perfect, but they have improved enormously, and good housing is the foundation of good health.
We have been very fortunate in that all through the war we have had an excellent supply of food and a great variety of food. For this we owe a great debt of gratitude to our Navy. We are also indebted to the Ministry of Food, although we often find fault with them, for the excellent way in which they have managed the distribution and storage of the food of the country. There has, then, been an enormous increase in milk for children, and this has certainly had a marvellous effect upon the health of the children. I only wish it were possible to do what Lord Dawson wants us to do, and for all of us to be able to drink quantities of milk. At any rate, we are agreed that children should come first in being able to get extra milk. In recent times communal feeding in British Restaurants throughout the country his had a very good effect upon the health of the people. Both food and cleanliness are very important in maintaining the nation's health. Some of us have had the opportunity of going to the country and seeing the conditions, month by month and year by year, of the evacuated children whom we meet there. It brings joy to the heart of anybody who can see them to realise how vastly these children have improved, both physically and mentally, during the war. This will give us a field for much thought and much planning after the war. This lesson which the war has taught us must be remembered in our consideration after the war of how best to produce a high standard of health among our children.
There is one thing that disturbs me. There is no doubt that at the beginning of the war we made a very great mistake in evacuating so many cases of tuberculosis from the sanatoria back to their homes. I believe our fear of this has perhaps given some of us an exaggerated idea of the amount of harm that has been done, but let us acknowledge that it was a very great mistake. I believe that steps have already been taken to get these people back to sanatoria, but there is another danger that we have to face, and it is the danger of the contacts in the homes to which these infectious tuberculosis cases have returned. Many years ago I took a small part in one of the first careful investigations of contacts of tuberculosis in London. I know what a very

big work is involved and how much tact is needed to persuade the people to go to the hospital and be examined, but it is of the utmost importance that all people who have come into contact with infectious cases from sanatoria should be carefully examined. I hope that the Minister, in his reply, will be able to give us an encouraging report on these cases and tell us that the work of examining the contact cases has been started. There is a field for great work by the health services of the country in getting the contact cases together, examining them carefully, and making sure that tubercle does not spread again. The work on tuberculosis in this country has been magnificent during the last 30 years, and we cannot allow the position to slip back to where it was before that work was done. I am sure we shall not do so, but I urge the importance of having these cases examined.
With regard to the health of the people after the war, it is of the utmost importance that there should be thinking and planning now. In this country we do not do things well in a hurry, and we do not want the end of the war to find us unprepared as to how best to assure the good health of the people. I was very pleased with the statement made by the Minister of Health on 9th October with regard to the hospital policy of the Government after the war. I consider that that statement will become a historical landmark in the foundation of a great medical service in this country. The day after the statement was made, I went to Oxford to attend a meeting of the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust. The Nuffield Trust has already done an enormous amount of research work throughout the country to find out exactly what our hospital services are like. I can assure the House that those meetings are extraordinarily invigorating. Round the committee table one finds the representatives of local government, municipal hospitals and voluntary hospitals, all working eagerly together with the object of doing their utmost to combine the best in each of their departments, so that there may be a better service after the war. At that meeting, the excellent chairman of the Trust, Mr. Goodenough, welcomed for all of us the statement that had been made by the Minister of Health of the previous day. I think he was very right when he said:


It is a short statement of enormous importance, and I want to impress upon you all that the important part of it is in that one word ' partnership '.
The secret of success after the war in the hospital service will be to get a proper partnership between all the workers, municipal and voluntary, so that we can share and pool all that is best, and make a fine service. In this House we have had grievous political differences and fought severely on many subjects, but to-day having sunk all bitterness and strife between parties, we are united in our determination to fight against our enemies, the Nazis. I ask everybody who is interested in the public health service to adopt the same attitude now and after the war with regard to that service. Let us sink all differences and work together so that we can have a first-class service. We want to have a service in which it is possible for everybody in the land to have quick attention, the patient going to the general practitioner, and the general practitioner being able to obtain special help locally. Although years ago, when this sort of regional plan was brought forward by Lord Dawson, it seemed a dream, to-day, it seems as if that dream will come true. We are coins to have the finest service this country has ever known, and indeed the finest health service ever known in the world, but only if all workers are willing to sink their differences and work heartily together to that end. A great example has been set in the work which the Nuffield Trust has already done. The Nuffield Trust has been doing research work in the provinces, and we were informed by the Minister on 9th October that his Department are making a similar survey in the London district. I look forward to great things coming from the combination of these two.
I hope also that after the war there will be a great increase in the number of nursery schools, which have proved their worth to the health of the children. The work done by the noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) has been very well rewarded. She has seen perhaps more than any of us the good that has come from the hard work she has done, and I know that we could never have started the excellent nursery school which we have to-day in Reading if it had not been for her constant help month by month. Wherever these schools have been started,

they have been a great success, and I hope that after the war their number will be very greatly multiplied.
Another very important side of the hospital services is the work done by the hospital almoners. There may be some Members of the House who do not realise fully what a hospital almoner is. I assure them that a properly trained hospital almoner holds quite a different position in the hospital from anyone else on the staff. These women are chosen very carefully, and they go for two years to the School of Economics or some similar training place, where they obtain a diploma. After that they have four months in the office of the Charity Organisation Society, and finally they have 11 months in a hospital almoner's office. Those 11 months are spent partly in London and partly in the provinces. These people are very carefully educated for the work that lies in front of them. There is no one except the trained hospital almoner who knows what can be done with a case, who knows what the voluntary services are and who can join together all these places, without any overlapping, which can help the patient.
The almoner acts, as it were, as a liaison officer between the hospital and the home, and this is enormously important. Suppose someone, say a breadwinner, is suddenly taken seriously ill and removed to a hospital. It makes an enormous difference to the patient to know exactly what is happening at the home, to know that the children are being properly cared for, fed and clothed, and sent to school, and that is what the almoner can do. She stops an enormous amount of waste. What is the good of a doctor saying to a patient, "You want rest and extra milk and a great deal of care taken of you"? To many people that is quite impossible. But when you have a proper almoner's service the wife will be interviewed by the almoner before she leaves the hospital, and the almoner will arrange for carrying out the treatment which the doctor knows to be right. If you do not have that service, the woman goes away hopeless. She knows that she cannot follow the directions. Through the good working of the hospital almoner's service you save an enormous amount of suffering and an enormous amount of waste in hospital administration. I hope this service, which has increased so greatly during the last few


years, will go on increasing. I should like to thank the Ministry of Health for their appreciation of the work that the almoners do and for their support of them in every way in all the hospitals throughout the land. It is not everyone who knows about the work of almoners, but the Ministry is fully alive to its importance.
I should like to say something about post-war policy in regard to housing. There is much to be done in better housing. This is the only thing in which the enemy has helped us, by clearing away a lot of the worst dwellings. I hope there will be very careful planning as to how best to build up. I should wish the authorities to remember the importance of keeping up the individuality of the home unit. There are people who like living in flats, and there are people who hate it. There are people who like to live in maisonettes and people who like to own their own little houses. Do not let us have monotony in our planning. Let us give the possibility of people having some choice as to what their homes should be. There is a book published by the Bournville Trust called "When we build again. "They have conducted a very interesting research into building. Their remarks are very sane, and their proposals are very sane, too. I am sure that anyone who has not seen this book would be well advised to study it. It is simple and straightforward and of extraordinary interest. I know that the Ministry of Works and Buildings have all this in mind, but there is a great deal besides the matter of building itself to be thought about, and I hope the Ministry of Health will see that the ideas of their advisers on health and on the unity of the home are observed.
I believe this is a very important thing for the health of the people. I hope that after the war we shall sink all differences of opinion and unite in that partnership that was advised by the Minister. Let us have a partnership free of all bitterness. Let us pool all that is best in the systems that we have had in the past, so that we may have a service of health which will stop an enormous amount of suffering and enable patients to be treated quickly in their own localities instead of having to wait for weeks until the disease has made further progress and it is too late really to

cure. I ask all interested in the subject to sink all bitterness and narrow mindedness and to unite together with the Ministry of Health, and indeed with the Nuffield Trust, in order to be quite certain that after the war we have a health service such as we have never known before.

Mr. Messer: We have listened to a very comforting speech. If we could all feel as the hon. Member feels, there would be no need for this Debate. But I want to suggest that the time at our disposal to-day is completely insufficient, and I hope I shall get support from all quarters of the House in asking that we shall have a fall-dress Debate. This question is of such wide dimensions and its ramifications extend in such a way as will not permit of any one speaker covering the whole ground or every Member who is interested putting his special point of view. You cannot separate the hospital service from the general medical service of the country. I agree that you can for the purposes of rough debate divide the question up into two parts—war-time action and post-war planning. War-time difficulties must not be an excuse for inaction but a reason for action.
One aspect of the matter which calls for immediate action is in regard to tuberculosis. During the last war the mortality figures from this cause rose, and we find the same phenomenon during this war. In the first two years of the last war the figures went up by 3,000. In the first two years of this war they had gone up by 2,000. I know that figures can be dealt with so as to give the most satisfactory or the least important implications and that standing by themselves they do not mean anything, but a 2,000 increase after we have had 20 years of intensive work on tuberculosis is a different thing. Another significant figure is that which is related to age-groups. The death-rate for women in the age-group 15–24 was 109 per. 100,000 in 1914. It had risen to 158 in 1918. The important thing is not so much the total number involved as the section cf the community which is affected. In that age-group of 15–24 we have the flower of England's womanhood, the mothers who are to be, and a section of the community which we can least afford to spare. In a test recently taken in two areas there were 21 new cases in the age-group 11–20 in the first quarter of 1939. In the first


quarter of 1940 there were 28 new cases. The mortality figure is not the only one of importance. The figure of new cases is important, for there can be a block of deaths at an age when they can be expected so that the mortality figures do not bear the same relation to the incidence of the disease as the figures of new cases in the younger groups. In the 11–20 group the new cases again went up in the first quarter of 1941 to 35. In the age-group 21–30 the number of new cases in the first quarter of 1939 was 34. In the first quarter of 1940 they had gone up to 52, and in the first quarter of 1941 to 65.
That means that there is a progressive increase, not a fluctuation, and that the falling curve up to 1935 has not continued, but has made a sharp rise. I cannot be comforted, as my hon. Friend was, with the idea that seemed to be in his mind that so much had been done and that everything was right in the best of all possible worlds. I am not satisfied that everything is being done, especially in this question. Have we sufficient sanatorium or hospital accommodation? We were told, in answer to a question, that there was a waiting list of 1,700 people who need treatment and cannot get it. We have therefore 1,700 innocent "fifth columnists" who ought to be in a sanatorium or hospital bed and who are a danger to the community for while they are waiting, there is the possibility of other people getting that dread disease. What is of equal importance, the longer a T.B. case waits for positive treatment the less chance there is of an improvement in his condition. The Minister may tell me that we simply have not the accommodation, that local authorities have been empowered to provide it, and that if they have not done so, it is not the Minister's fault.
Looking round the country where can we find beds? I would do with big mansions and houses what has been done with the manhood of the country—I would conscript them. I know that it is possible for compulsory powers to be invoked to get them, but those of us who have had anything to do with that sort of thing know that it is not an easy matter. For instance, in Saffron Walden there was need for finding a school. The education authorities approached the Army with a view to releasing a big house which they occupied, and the Army agreed to go. Somehow, a private individual got hold of

the key and moved in, and it was impossible to get him out. I approached the Minister about it. That was a house which could have accommodated others than a private individual. Looking round for other accommodation, we discovered a big house in the same district in which there lived one lady. The house had 16 rooms, and I suggest that they could have been turned into a T.B. sanatorium or hospital. I read in the Press on Saturday of a house of 91 rooms, including 55 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, 26 other rooms, garages and stabling, and because a tenant could not be found for it the assessment committee agreed to reduce the rates. So that the rate goes down and the death-rate goes up.
The Minister was good enough to answer a Question which I addressed to him last week with regard to percentages, and I mention it to press the point about age-groups. He said that the percentage increase for the whole population of England and Wales in 1939 was 9[...]7. The highest rate was 15 per cent., which was among women between 14 and 25. In the first quarter of 1941 there was a reduction of 7 per cent. We ought to discover some system under which immediately there is a suspected case of tuberculosis it should at once be handled. The difficulty is that a T.B. case is not necessarily one when; the man or woman feels downright ill. The patient feels ill enough to see a doctor, and the normal course when a general practitioner examines the patient is, if he suspects T.B., to send him to the T.B. officer, clinic or tuberculosis dispensary. If, after undergoing tests, examinations and observations it is found to be a case for a sanatorium, the patient will be put on the wafting list. If he remains on the waiting list long, the fear of that dread disease begins to deepen, and he is more and more reluctant to go away because he will have to leave his wife and family, who will, in all probability, have to go on public assistance because the panel benefit will not be enough to keep him and his family. We ought to encourage every one suspected of T.B. to have treatment as speedily as possible and to remain under treatment as long as possible. I do not wish to differentiate among diseases, but a special case can be made out for T.B. Then, it is not enough to send a T.B. case to a sanatorium. You erect fine


buildings, furnish them with the most up-to-date equipment and there build up the wasted patient until he looks fitter than ever with the flush of health on his cheeks—and then you send him back to the slums which gave him the scourge, send him back to widen, possibly, the field of danger because of the danger of contact.
I shall not be able to spend too much time on the subject of tuberculosis, because those who are in contact with health questions see so much that there are other cases of priority in their minds. There are the vexed questions of maternal mortality, infant mortality, rehabilitation and fracture clinics, and one Debate is really not long enough in which to deal with all these problems. The tuberculosis problem can be divided into three parts. There is the initial stage, where it may be decided that the case is one for remedial treatment and should go to a hospital or sanatorium, or that it can remain under treatment in a tuberculosis clinic. Here I would ask the Minister whether he is satisfied that scheme-making authorities are really doing all they might in the provision of clinics for chest complaints, and whether they are equipped with X-rays and there is provision for screening and all the other things which are so necessary in an up-to-date clinic. As to the cases which require sanatorium or hospital treatment, I would urge the necessity of taking all T.B. cases out of our general hospitals and putting them either in special T.B. wards or in special T.B. hospitals or sanatoria.
After-care is the third aspect of the problem. The Ministry of Health has given county councils power to deal with it, and if I may respond to the hon. Member who asked for some recognition of the work already done by the Ministry of Health let me say that when I have attended with deputations at the Ministry of Health the Ministry have never discouraged anything that would lead to an extension of efficiency in after-care, and, indeed, have urged the desirability of extending after-care provisions. When I have pointed out that some of the sufferers are existing on public assistance and cannot get all that a T.B. patient requires in the way of food, or that the husband has to sleep in the same room as

his wife and children, the Ministry of Health have said "Treat him differently; treat the sufferer as outside the Poor Law." I wish to see tuberculosis sufferers outside the Poor Law. We have taken the blind outside the Poor Law, saying that blind people are poor because they are blind, that their poverty is not transitory but permanent:, and they ought to be recognised as forming a special category. Cannot we do that with sufferers from tuberculosis? Not only should we take the patient outside the Poor Law but the dependants of the patient also. Then we shall not be in a position where a man who is a sufferer from tuberculosis is being dealt with in one way whilst his wife and children depend on public assistance. After-care is very important. If we could get the figures of readmissions, showing the number of people who have to return to sanatoria after they have been discharged, we should get an enormous number.
The Papworth scheme is a very interesting one. At Papworth there is a colony of tuberculous people. They are in the country, not in a London slum, and live an ordinary life in ordinary houses. The workshops in which they work are adjacent to their homes. It is in a beautiful part of that country', on the road from Royston to Huntingdon, and if any hon. Member wants an interesting afternoon I would advise him to go there.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Ernest Brown): I have been there more than once.

Mr. Messer: In the workshops there the men are not working competitively. They are expected to work according to the measure of their strength, not always doing a full day's work. The products of those workshops could not possibly meet the competition of the open market and they ought not to be expected to do so. I wonder, sometimes, whether people realise the importance of doing work for other reasons than earning money.

Mr. Gallacher: Not the Members on the other side.

Mr. Messer: I know of some very hard workers among my political opponents. In matters of health no party considerations are raised. We can all meet on the common ground of humanity. If in these discussions we leave aside the point of


view of the voluntary hospital, or the municipal hospital, or the general medical practitioner, or the specialist who wants to maintain his preserves—if we will forget all those and look at the patient I think we shall be doing as much as can be expected of us.

Mr. Gallacher: Is the hon. Member not aware that it was only because Members on the other side wanted to save the population in order to get more profits out of them that they interested themselves in the health of the people? They look for profits.

Mr. E. Brown: No, no.

Mr. Gallacher: Yes, it is so.

Mr. Messer: I would not mind taking up the challenge, but it would take a longer time to deal with it than I can now give. I think I should be able to show easily that sociological evolution is very much like biological evolution.

Mr. Gallacher: It is very different.

Mr. Messer: As one system decays, another grows. Every system bears within itself the germs of its own destruction. Out of the most rotten conditions, the prettiest flower can bloom. I still hold that this question must not be one of particular interests, professional interests or even of political interests. I want to see those who have been deprived of the means of prolonging their lives get those means. I want to see a reduction in the sum total of human suffering. I want to get. if possible, a more humane treatment of those who are dependent upon us for what we can do, because they are deprived of the ability of doing it for themselves. While we shall fight as fiercely as ever on all political questions, I hope that this question will be treated as above politics. I urge that when the Minister gets the result of the inquiry by the Medical Research Council he should turn his attention to those aspects of the question that will present themselves as a result of to-day's Debate, and should take such steps as are possible to deal with the matter as speedily as can be.
I have not touched upon the question of maternity, but next to tuberculosis maternity is perhaps the most important. I regret that there is not sufficient accom-

modation in hospitals for all women who would like to be provided for there. Week after week I am confronted with questions of who shall go into the maternity hospital. The doctor in charge of a case will represent it as being of such surgical difficulty that it must have priority, or the lady almoner says that a case is unsuitable for confinement in the home. Then there is the case which needs to come into the hospital because of inability to pay the doctor and the midwifery fees outside. The Government have gone a long way in the midwifery service. Something has been done, but whether it is as much as we desire is another question. It is no use blinding ourselves to the progress that has been made, but to the extent that there is a woman outside a hospital who should be inside, we have failed. To the extent that a woman is discharged at the end of nine days to go back to the workshop, factory or home, we have failed. Maternity in the hospital is not just a question of more efficient medical treatment or more efficient nursing; a woman away from her home is away from a great deal of anxiety. She is free for that period to devote herself to the task of bringing into the world a new life. Every woman has the right of bringing that new life into the world with the least pain and suffering and with the greatest assurance that the child shall inherit the right to life. The number of children born is not the most important factor, but rather the number of children who survive.
The Minister made a statement on postwar planning, and it was heartily welcomed by the hon. Member who has just spoken, but that statement did not give me complete satisfaction. There is a possibility that when the Minister amplifies the statement we shall have a better idea of what is in his mind. He said either too much or too little. He aroused grave misgivings in the minds of some people by what he said. What he left unsaid gave ground for graver doubts. He seemed to suggest that responsibility would be placed upon the municipal authorities for some measure of co-operation with the voluntary hospitals. He did not say who the municipal authorities will be, and whether he will retain the county councils or not. I hope the idea will not be an ad hoc body like the Metropolitan Asylums Board. As a basis, it would appear that we shall take the Emergency Medical Service. This service has not


been an unmixed blessing. If I had been privileged to say anything in the drafting of the plans for that service, I certainly should not have left out of account the vast experience of the medical officers of local authorities. Take the London region. Here are nine sectors, six of them North of the Thames and three South of the Thames. The spearhead of those sectors is a distinguished medical man who was drawn from a voluntary hospital, but his task is not medical; it is administrative. If there is anybody who has had no experience—I say this with all respect—of co-ordination of hospital services, it is the medical men attached to the voluntary hospitals.
The suggestion has been made that we have in this country a voluntary hospital system and a municipal hospital system, but we have nothing of the sort. There is no voluntary hospital system, and equally there is no municipal hospital system. Each voluntary hospital is a law unto itself and acts quite independently. There is a vast amount of overlapping. Departments in one voluntary hospital are duplicated at the next voluntary hospital, and the hospitals are usually situated without any regard to population. There may be vast areas where there is no possibility of hospital treatment. There are not two systems but two types of hospital—the voluntary type and the municipal type. I agree that the time has arrived when they should be replanned, but rather more comprehensively than was outlined in the Minister's speech.3
I think we need to deal with this matter somewhat on the lines of education. There is the Board of Education, and there are standardised salaries throughout the whole of the country—less salaries for women than for men, but you will not get that in the medical service. Believe me, any attempt to make the women doctors treat a person for less than the men doctors would certainly not meet with any sort of support. I would like to know why it is that the municipal hospitals were left out of any office in the Emergency Medical Service. Why was it that at the head of each sector a representative of the voluntary hospitals was appointed? I considered the Emergency Medical Service as having two objects. One was to enable the London hospitals to evacuate, because they were in a dangerous spot, and the

other was to provide beds for casualties. Perhaps that was the main reason. But there seems to be no earthly reason why this new Emergency Service should have had all its posts filled by representatives of the voluntary hospitals.
As one of my hon. Friends remarked in a supplementary question last week, voluntary hospitals in the modern world are an anachronism. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] A person who will not recognise an anachronism when he sees it is getting to the stage when he is an anachronism himself. The truth is that the voluntary hospitals did meet a need in the past. Where would the health services have been without them? Do not let us, in our criticism, fail to recognise that the doctors and staffs of the voluntary hospitals have done a great work in the past. But it is in the past. They have grown up, and the time has arrived when what was done by indiscriminate charity should be done by the community for the community. The Emergency Medical Service was intended, therefore, to permit the evacuation of the London hospitals, to provide means for treating casualties and, possibly, to preserve the voluntary hospitals from extinction. For it is very doubtful whether the voluntary hospitals could continue to function except under this E.M.S. scheme. Under the E.M.S. scheme every bed in our voluntary hospitals is paid for 100 per cent., while every bed in a municipal hospital receives 60 per cent. I do not complain about that, because, after all, the local authority is a public authority and has a measure of responsibility, while those who are in control of a voluntary hospital are not a public authority. There is a wide difference. We owe a very great debt to the voluntary hospitals, but the time has arrived when they themselves should recognise that in the interests of progress and of an efficient medical service they must be brought into a comprehensive scheme. It could be on the lines of our educational system. The truth is that the voluntary hospitals cannot continue.
Now I want to refer to something which the Minister said and which did more than arouse grave misgivings. It aroused my suspicion when he said that special arrangements will be made for financing the teaching hospitals. Why? Not a word was said about the possibility of the municipal hospitals becoming teaching


hospitals. What are we doing about that? I do not want to be selfish, but I rarely speak in this House and then only on questions which interest me deeply and about which I feel keenly, and here is this statement that special arrangements will be made for financing the teaching and specialised hospitals. Does that mean that when the new plan comes into operation the teaching and specialised hospital will get all the acute cases, all the operation cases and all those other cases which are so valuable from the standpoint of the student, and that the municipal hospitals will be left with the chronics, with the tuberculous, infectious, senile and mental cases? Is that all the work which the municipal hospitals will do? If so, you are going back to the bad old days of the Poor Law infirmary, and it will be bitterly contested.
I would not give a penny piece to a teaching hospital except on certain conditions. I would say to the great teaching hospitals, "You can have public funds, providing the public can benefit—that is, everybody shall have an equal opportunity of becoming an officer." They must drop their snobbishness. It is out of date, it is Victorian, but it does exist. I know a case of a young lady who went through her first year as a probationer, then through her second year, and was going through her third year when she was told she could not continue. She was alarmed, because this amounted to shutting the door in the face of her professional life. She sought the advice of her parents who had an interview with the matron. Nothing could be done; she would have to give it up. Why? Because of bad character? No. Inefficiency? No, because she has subsequently taken her certificate and is now a State registered nurse. The reason was that her father was a carpenter. That cannot go on. She was not able to continue her training because her father was a carpenter. Years ago, a carpenter founded a new religion, and 2,000 years afterwards a carpenter's daughter was prevented from putting that religion into practical application. I know that one swallow does not make a summer—

Dr. Morgan: I know hundreds of them.

Mr. Messer: —but let me now turn to the medical profession. Only a short while ago I received the usual form from

a certain medical school asking me for a reference on behalf of a student.

Sir Joseph Lamb: Before my hon. Friend goes on, will he tell me if the girl he mentioned, for whom we all have sympathy, appealed to the committee? I cannot conceive that such a thing could have been allowed.

Dr. Morgan: I could tell of a case in which a nurse, who was the daughter of a trade-union official, was sacked from a well-known children's hospital.

Mr. Messer: A challenge has been made, and I think it should be met. What is required is the name of the hospital and the name of the person concerned.

Sir J. Lamb: I did not ask for that. I asked if the individual had appealed to the committee.

Mr. Messer: I cannot regard my hon. Friend's Question as being anything but a challenge as to the truth of my statement. Very well. The hospital was King's College Hospital, and the name of the girl was Kent, the daughter of the present Mayor of Tottenham. Those are the facts. I must satisfy the House that I am not speaking without some basis for what I say. I did not want to give the name of the hospital or the name of the girl. I received a form recently asking me to give a reference in respect to a student. The first question was "Educational attainments"—quite sensible and quite a right question. The second was "Character," which was quite a good question. I do not think that anyone of bad character should have entry into such an honourable profession. The third question was "Social standing of parents." If the father had been a navvy, I would have said "Gentleman" had his character justified it. He happened to be a doctor. That is snobbishness. The same door through which the rich man goes should be open to the poor man.

Sir Francis Fremantle (St. Albans): So it is.

Dr. Morgan: No.

Mr. Messer: If it is, then clearly there is no reason why any alteration should be made. If it is, why did not this girl continue to work as a nurse? Suppose I


had said that this man was the son of a convict. Would he have got into the hospital? No, he would have had to suffer for his father; not for his father doing wrong but for being found out. The majority of teaching hospitals refuse to accept women students. Why? If we are to have a proper system of health services, the treatment of the sick is one thing, and the method of education of those who are to treat them is another. If we believe, as we say we do, in democracy, do not let it be mere lip-service. Let us build up a democratic system wherein the value of the individual will find its expression for the qualities he possesses, irrespective of his antecedents. I apologise for taking up the time I have occupied and hope to have a further opportunity of speaking on other questions in another Debate on health.

Sir Francis Fremantle: I am sure we have been much interested and moved by the speeches of both the opener and the last speaker in this Debate. I think we have particular regard for the splendid work which the hon. Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) has done in connection with the Middlesex County hospitals and those elsewhere. I wish to point out one or two points in which he is grossly mistaken in his appreciation of the work of voluntary hospitals. I bring in another aspect because I was a county medical officer of health for 16 years, and I had to see to the building-up of a service of voluntary hospitals or municipal hospitals which were then quite apart from the other health services although obviously there were the beginnings of a municipal hospital system under the Poor Law and Public Health Act. There was a patent and obvious need. Therefore I maintain that the line we have to take, the line in which I have been engaged in my professional work, is, What are the needs of the nation, and how can we make the best use of the facilities and equipment available at the present time? As the hon. Member for South Tottenham said, let us all concur on behalf, not of any section and, I would add, not on behalf of any ideology, but simply in the interests of humanity. So I want to deal with the question more particularly of the voluntary hospitals and their position in this scheme.
The hon. Member for South Tottenham has spoken of the voluntary hospital as an anachronism. I am not certain what he means by that. This House is an anachronism, in a way. It is not designed for the purposes for which it is now used, whether before the war or during the war. Yet it is extremely useful. So, in the same way, arc a very large number of our services. It has recently been said by the President of the Board of Education in another connection that we have the great benefit of tradition and a modern spirit, and that in a world in which the State has come to stay it must be our endeavour to secure an enduring place for private enterprise. Here you have the resources of the State being brought in more and more and being developed in the public interest, and at the same time we have to secure that we shall still make the most of private initiative. The first thing that has to be remembered in introducing the State into these matters is that it is a comparatively new departure for the State and a new idea of the State to take over the social services and social care of the people. It is a very useful, and a very right and proper development, but it is new. It is true that the Poor Law was introduced to take the place of the monasteries in Queen Elizabeth's day. But the interests of humanity in the social services were largely left to private initiative outside the State. Now we realise that the State, in addition to governing, protecting and judging, can also be made responsible for those services but no law has been passed to make it responsible. That is why the State services may be found to be deficient in various ways. They require development in order to fill the need. They do not always fill every need as they are at the present time.
You have to take the services developed by private initiative and see to what extent the State can supplement and help them and perhaps, eventually, to some extent, displace them. But the time has not come for that. Meanwhile you must have co-operation between the two. There are those who would wish to sweep away the voluntary hospitals and bring them entirely into a State service. That is not the way in which we have developed in this country, and I do not think it is the way in which sound development would take place. We are fortunate in having an old tradition and a modern


spirit. Old tradition is useless without the modern spirit, but the modern spirit is useless unless it makes use of old tradition. Old traditions are the roots from which the State services sprang and will develop. You do not cut the branches off a tree and expect the branches, the boughs and the flowers to develop future trees. You make the most of the tree which is growing. You go in for root pruning to improve the tree, and it is out of such a tree that you get the most in the long run when you cut it down for timber. It is the same with these hospital services. A wonderful service has been developed, with extraordinary inequalities and extraordinary deficiencies undoubtedly, but with extraordinarily good results.
It must be recognised that a municipal system, like any other system, has its defects as well as its advantages. Taken broad and long, it is run by people elected by local electors. What is the value of local elections when very often only 30 per cent, go to the poll? What is the real advantage if the management is elected on any qualification except that of their capacity for the work? It is not often that you find people like the hon. Member for South Tottenham who will take up the work so keenly. Yet because people have been elected they are to run this whole institution. Contrast that with the voluntary hospitals, supported and run only by people who are interested in them, people who come to them because of their interest. It is like the voluntary system in the Army rather than compulsion: it is like the system that we have through the whole of British life, of using voluntary interest rather than putting people in by some system of so-called representative government. That policy has its disadvantages undoubtedly. There are many voluntary hospitals which have outworn their day and the managements of which also have outworn their day. That is why co-operation between the State service and the voluntary service is so useful. I believe that, while the voluntary system is valuable, you must have some kind of interference by the State in the management of the voluntary hospitals. That, I take it, is one of the matters to be considered in the survey to be made by the Minister of Health. But I am perfectly certain that if you take away the voluntary management and the voluntary support of those hospitals you

will take away a large part of the special quality of the voluntary hospital system.
I think all who work in hospitals will agree that voluntary running of the hospitals, taking it by and large, results in greater freedom, greater initiative, and greater elasticity. We can all find many exceptions to that or to any other rule. No doubt there are certain municipalities, especially the London County Council, and, I am sure, the Middlesex County Council, which have developed their hospital services in the direction of greater freedom. But it is very difficult for the officials of the hospitals, even for the medical officials, and still more for the managements, to undertake the large experiments that are possible in a voluntary hospital. In a voluntary hospital the doctors and staff work in close collaboration, and the doctors have a very large amount of freedom and are supported by the governors. I admit that sometimes there is not sufficient check on the doctors, and that they have too much power, without proper control by the governing body, but, taken as a whole, the system is good, because the doctor feels that he has a free hand to do what he and the governors think right for the patient. In a municipal institution there is always the chance of the doctor and his management being hauled up before the council; they are responsible to the electors in a way which is not the case with voluntary hospitals.

Mr. Messer: As the hon. Member knows, a voluntary hospital generally is run by a lay officer, the secretary, working with a committee or a board of governors, and each member of the medical staff is an independent medical man. The voluntary hospitals have usually a medical committee. Does the hon. Member agree that if there was a lay administrator in a municipal hospital, with a medical committee, but still retaining the resident medical officers, you would have a better system, than exists now in the voluntary hospitals?

Sir F. Fremantle: I do not admit that straight away. It might be the case. You might have a very efficient organisation, almost as efficient as at my old hospital, Guy's, where there was a medical superintendent who was one of the greatest brains of this century, Sir E. Cooper Perry. You could get that efficient arrangement under either system. You


may get inequalities under either system. It is not a matter to generalise over. The hon. Member generalised, and I do not wish to do so.
There is another large feature, perhaps the main point of the Minister's statement last week on the future policy of the Government. That is the question of the greater grouping of hospitals in the system of collaboration that is to be the future basis. The Minister referred to the necessity of having larger authorities than those which in many cases are now responsible for the health of the people. That is a very large question. I was glad to see it suggested that the time has come to concentrate these powers in the major authorities, the county and county borough councils. I think the Minister suggested the necessity for an even wider area than that of the county and county borough councils. Last Saturday I was privileged to take part in one of our quarterly conferences in the Eastern area with the regional commissioner at Cambridge. I raised the point as to whether he thought the future was tending in the direction of regionalisation. He recognised that you do not want to duplicate systems of authority and get another system introduced between those that already exist and the Departments of State. I called to mind that our own Prime Minister, in his less responsible days, about 15 years ago, outlined the possibility of provincialisation of local government, if not of all government, in this country, in areas such as the provinces of Wessex and Essex. He suggested seven different areas. That has been brought to the fore again recently by the necessities of the war—and even before the war—by what was being done in that direction by the Departments of State, especially the Ministry of Health. But it seems that the right solution unofficially suggested itself at Cambridge on Saturday and that there would always be the need for this regional view of things, and, therefore, for some kind of regional commissioner or advisory council. That would appear to be the way in which it would develop in the future. It would have to be more than a casual voluntary organisation and would have to have very definite powers, duties and responsibilities, and be in a position to give advice to the authorities concerned.
This sort of thing is of enormous importance in the hospital question. The division of local government between county and county boroughs does not help in hospital work. The hospitals of the big towns depend very largely upon the surrounding county, and to an increasing extent for convalescent homes and sanatoria, and I hope that as a result of the war we shall be able to do all that I have wanted to be done from the first, and that, instead of the big hospitals of London rebuilding in London, they will keep only casualty and reception stations and one or two special departments that are necessary, and an administrative office, and will shift the patients out to the country. They could still put up large hoardings calling attention to their existence and appealing for support. When King's College Hospital moved to the suburbs it moved entirely and went out of the sight of a large public. When we are dealing with the question of regionalisation, we have to see that the old geographical boundaries are made much narrower. We want to retain the hospital administration of the separate counties and county boroughs, but we want a wider field included in regionalisation. This sort of thing would have to be brought in after the war under a rearrangement of the system of local government.
At present it is clear that you have to use the additional facilities under the Board of Education and other facilities that are given in connection with whatever hospital is being used. We have to get some system whereby you combine the municipal hospitals and the voluntary hospitals; surely that is possible. I suggest that the analogy of the education system is extremely useful in considering this problem. The hon. Member for South Tottenham alluded to it. Compulsory education was brought in something like 70 years ago, and the non-provided schools were allowed to remain. They still remain, although, by degrees, they are passing out. The preparatory schools and the endowed public schocls and the universities go on and will still go on, largely because of their detachment and independence, and they will still go on with State help and grants of various kinds. That is why I believe that the voluntary system will continue and be a permanent part of our hospital system.
I agree with the hon. Member for South Tottenham that it is part of the health administration, and therefore I would like to see the hospitals, whether voluntary or municipal, become collective centres of all the services required for health. I would like to see the medical officer of health have his offices there. We ought not to have small clinics scattered about; they all ought to be in parts of the same building. The hospital ought to be the centre of research and of private practice and preventive medicine. Our nursing services have been a great development of the voluntary hospital system, and nurses are now being used very largely in municipal services. There has been a differentiation between the nursing of nurses in hospitals and the nursing of nurses outside. The work of district nurses is immensely important even to the treatment of individual patients in hospitals, both in attending to them in the early stages of illness before they go to hospital and when they come out of hospital and require to be looked after. Hitherto there has been a separate growth of the district nursing association and the hospital association. I want them to be combined into one service, and I hope that that will be one of the many results of the great improvement which has been foreshadowed by the Minister. It has been said by somebody that it is premature to start planning now, but it is not premature to think out and make your survey now. It is said that if the first button of a man's coat be wrongly buttoned, then the whole will be wrong. Let us see that the first button is buttoned right and start on sound lines. We should be able to look forward to the next stage without embarrassment and with confidence when the main controversies of the past are settled.

Dr. Edith Summerskill: The hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle) devoted most of his speech to upholding the voluntary hospital system.

Sir F. Fremantle: As part of the whole.

Dr. Summerskill: I intend to devote most of my speech to condemning the present system root and branch. It may be that the hon. Member for St. Albans represents a generation different from mine, but I can assure the House that what I am about to say is the view held not only by a small group of doctors to-

day but by all doctors who think in terms only of the welfare of the patient.

Sir F. Fremantle: Oh, no, that certainly is not the case.

Dr. Summerskill: Will the hon. Member for St. Albans during the next 10 minutes remember that I did not interrupt him, because I have a feeling that he may be provoked more than once by the time I sit down? I wish that the Minister of Health were present just now, because in planning the health services of the future he must realise that he will have to have the courage to face up to the diehards who seek to retain the voluntary hospital system. It has been queried whether a voluntary hospital is an anachronism or not. The voluntary system dates back to the days when the State disclaimed all responsibility for the sick who were dependent on the charity of the wealthy. Those who support this system have used ad nauseam the words "tradition" and "prestige." They have reminded the House that the tradition of the voluntary hospital is so important that the whole system should be retained for that alone. But I want to remind the House that most voluntary hospitals in the country to-day are small institutions, modern in type, which have no more pretentions to tradition or prestige than the municipal hospitals in the same town.
We are told that voluntary hospitals have always been supported by charity and that there is something ennobling and line for a hospital to depend on charity. In olden times, perhaps, when some generous, warm-hearted individual came forward and gave many thousands of pounds, we might say that this was a generous and ennobling deed, but I ask the hon. Member for St. Albans—let us be honest—Is there anything ennobling in our large teaching hospitals sending out nurses and students to make clowns of themselves in the streets? Is it ennobling for the secretaries of our large teaching hospitals to have to sit and think how to make money out of bridge parties, dances, concerts and other things in order to get more money from the public? Is it ennobling for our large teaching hospitals to deface the facade of a hospital with advertisements for proprietary foods and beer in order to raise money for the hospital? I suggest that this is not a dignified form of charity. Surely, it is an


undignified form of begging, and we are wrong to support a system which relies upon financing one of the most important services of the country in this matter.
I suggest that these hospitals, because they have insufficient funds, are economising at the expense of their patients. It has been suggested that there are other features which are to be found in our voluntary hospitals, but I have noticed that other speakers often slur over these other features. Again I would ask the hon. Member for St. Albans whether there is anything fine in asking sometimes as many as 100 seriously sick people to sit in an out-patients' department waiting their turn for attention? Is there anything fine in asking men and women who are seriously ill to wait for five or six weeks, or even two months, before they can be admitted into voluntary hospitals?

Mr. Lipson: Does that ever happen with regard to municipal hospitals?

Dr. Summerskill: The hon. Member is misinformed. A municipal hospital is under a statutory obligation to admit any patient immediately.

Mr. Lipson: If all the beds are full, how can they?

Dr. Summerskill: A municipal hospital does not always have its beds full. Very often it is a much bigger place than the voluntary hospital, but if a case which has to be admitted does come along, and there is no room, very often the hospital contacts the voluntary hospitals asking for the case to be admitted. I wish Members who come to an important Debate of this kind and dare to interject would make themselves better informed.
Now to come to another point. I feel that the time has come when we should discuss this matter in a practical manner and not deal with it in these vague phrases. My hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) mentioned the question of education. I believe there are something like 17 teach ing hospitals in London, of which 10—my numbers may not be quite right—refuse to admit women. I suggest that every teaching hospital, governed as it is by a handful of medical men who are, let us say, a little out of touch—I do not want to say they are out of date—

Sir Ernest Graham-Little: I have been for 50 years in close touch with a voluntary teaching hospital of the best type, as student, teacher and member of the honorary staff. It is not run by a handful of medical men, but by an able and important board of management, of which not more than a third as a rule represent the medical staff.

Dr. Summerskill: I am, of course, quite aware of these things, but the Minister has indicated that he is shortly to make grants to voluntary hospitals for the purposes of education, and my point is that women should not be excluded. Then there is the question of honorary staff, which I am sure will offend many people when I mention it. We have been told time and again that these men give their services without hope of reward. Well, Sir Dennis —

Mr. Deputy-Speaker(Sir Dennis Herbert): The hon. Lady must remember that one of the traditions of this House is that the occupant of this Chair must not be addressed by name.

Dr. Summerskill: I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. We must face up to this question. I agree that if the public were convinced that the staff of the voluntary hospitals gave their services without hope of reward, that in itself would be a strong case, perhaps, for upholding the hospitals, because they would feel that these men were serving the public, but the fact is that the best way of creating a remunerative private practice for any man is to be appointed to the staff of a voluntary hospital. That is why there is such competition to get on to the staffs of voluntary hospitals. This outworn system must be replaced; it is time it was replaced by a State-aided system. If the Minister of Health hopes to evade making this decision by giving his blessing to an unnatural union between municipal and voluntary hospitals, I feel that he will be doomed to disappointment, because cut of a union of this kind there can come nothing but disharmony.
I want now to deal with another person who plays a very large part in the medical services of this country—the general practitioner. A good deal of emphasis has been laid on the hospitals, but we


cannot, of course, maintain an adequate health service without having the general practitioners. The general practitioner in the country is visually a very hard-worked and over-worked man or woman, who usually has scarcely any time to have any post-graduate studies. They are, I believe, the only workers who are expected to do a consecutive day and night shift cheerfully. If we are to have an ideal health service, we must also arrange it so that the workers in it are given not only adequate pay but limited hours and, in this particular field, an opportunity to have post-graduate study. I hope also that the time will come when no general practitioner without a higher surgical qualification is allowed to operate in some of our small cottage and voluntary hospitals. It is an appalling thing that the ignorant public, particularly in some of our provincial towns, are operated on— very often major operations—by doctors who have not a higher surgical qualification.
With regard to the other very important section, the patients, I want to remind the Minister that, at the present time, every worker who has an income up to £420 a year has some form of medical service. If he has over £420 a year, it very often happens that he has a struggle to pay his doctor and is very often exploited by inferior nursing homes. The wealthy, of course, can have the best treatment available in the country. But there is another section of which I want to remind the Minister again, because it is a very important section. All those who work in the home, unless they are paid, have no opportunity to-day of availing themselves of any insurance scheme. I want to ask the Minister a question. We have heard a good deal about tuberculosis during the last two or three weeks, since the House heard that tuberculosis has increased, and I feel we shall hear a good deal more about it, because it is a reflection of the whole administration of the health services of this country that tuberculosis should have increased. I want to ask the Minister whether, in view of the fact that tuberculosis has increased among women, particularly women between 15 and 30, he thinks it is only a coincidence that large numbers of those women have no opportunity of availing themselves of any health service? I think the Minister

should remember that in tuberculosis one of the most important parts of the diagnosis and treatment is to see the patient in its early stages. The people among whom there is an increase of tuberculosis are chiefly just those people who would wait perhaps weeks or months before going to get advice, because they are unable to avail themselves of the health services. I want the right hon. Gentleman to remember, when he is thinking of plans—I feel that he is thinking along these lines, and that after the war we shall see some tremendous developments —that we shall never reduce diseases, particularly the incidence of those diseases which should be diagnosed in the very first instance, unless everybody is given the opportunity of going to a doctor irrespective of the patient's income.
In conclusion, I realise that the Minister of Health has a tremendously difficult time in front of him. I appreciate that, perhaps, services which have been recognised as part of our social life and have been run along certain lines are cherished by many people, but I think the Minister has to take very strong action and to be very bold. I would like to see not only the voluntary hospitals taken over by the State, but the profit motive eliminated from the treatment of disease, and every man, woman and child in this country have an opportunity of availing themselves of State medical services.

Captain Elliston: We have so few opportunities of discussing health matters in the House that it is a great disappointment that the length of this Debate is being curtailed in order to deal with other matters. I shall be bound to omit reference to a number of matters which I would have liked to have brought to the notice of the Minister, but we are told that there will be a further opportunity in the near future, perhaps, of raising these questions. I propose now to confine myself to the subject of the Government's policy in relation to voluntary and municipal hospitals. Of the four hon. Members who have spoken in the Debate, three are members of the medical profession. It may be useful if, as a lay member of a local health authority, I state how this matter appears in the eyes of those who are responsible for local health administration.
I want at once to thank the Minister for the statement which he made with regard


to the Government's policy. To my mind, his promise of a comprehensive hospitals system providing every form of medical and surgical treatment for every person in need of it in every part of the country represents an outstanding advance in the development of our health services. Such a scheme will bring the full benefit of medical progress not only to those who already use the hospitals, but to the many thousands of blackcoated workers, tradespeople, or struggling professional men, who, at the present time, can ill afford the great expense of modern treatment. In the old days, we relied upon the family doctor for everything. He never thought of asking for a second opinion until his patient was beyond hope, and when he did call a consultant from London or a neighbouring country town, it was only to emphasise the social and financial position of the patient. To-day, with the tremendous expansion of medical science, specialists have grown up in every branch of practice. They have been said to know more and more about less and less.
To-day, if one goes to a distinguished consultant for an opinion, he may perhaps want half a dozen reports before he will give even a diagnosis. He may want one's teeth examined; he may want one's eyes examined; he may want a report from a pathologist; he may want X-rays; he may want one to be in a nursing home for observation for a fortnight or more. All that, which is the natural outcome of the growth of medical science, has made treatment so expensive that it is no longer possible for ordinary people of small means to afford it. Full treatment, in fact, has ceased to be available for anybody but the very poor, who get the benefit of free services, or the very rich, in spite of the great generosity of the medical profession in moderating their fees according to the means of the patient. In a middle-class family, however, a surgical operation may represent a major financial calamity and may cripple the family for years to come. So it comes about that you will find people to-day who ought to undergo a course of treatment but who fear to consult a doctor because they dread an operation they cannot afford.
This question of the hospitals is so urgent that it can no longer be postponed. In addition to the increasing cost of medical attention, we are faced by the great

crisis created by the war. It has been estimated that up to the end of last June the damage done to hospitals exceeds £20,000,000. As on the occasion of the last war, therefore, it will be necessary for the hospitals to come to the Government for assistance in rebuilding and reconstruction. That being so, the Minister has taken very timely action in having preliminary consultations with bodies representative of the voluntary and municipal hospitals to ascertain what steps can best be taken to repair the damage inflicted upon them. He has now appointed a survey committee to assess the needs of London and provincial centres in the replacement of hospitals. He has already available the expert advice of the representative bodies and also much information collected by the Nuffield Trust. Those appointed to conduct this survey will have some enormously difficult problems to consider. They will have to consider the relative incidence of conditions requiring treatment in various population units. For instance, it is obvious that the hospital needs of Eastbourne and Wigan are very different. There must be inquiry as to the best size of hospitals for different purposes. We want advice regarding the transfer of bombed hospitals from noisy, crowded areas to more suitable sites. There is also the question of increased provision of private wards for paying patients.
A very thorough survey will be essential if anything like intelligent understanding of the problems is to be reached. Those entrusted with it must be persons with open minds and wide experience, with no axes to grind for any vested interests or established systems. Their function must be a complete review of all types of existing provision for general and special hospitals, fever hospitals, and maternity homes. Having completed the survey, they have to suggest how replanning can be done, what must be ruthlessly scrapped, what institutions may be amalgamated, which can be modified, and which must be extended. They have also to suggest means of supplying very special services, such as radium and deep X-ray therapy, perhaps for combinations of regions. It may be hoped they will go further and consider the conditions of service that will ensure the first-class staffing of these regional hospitals, for there is no just reason why patients in Cornwall or Westmorland should have less skilful


treatment than patients in London. There should be no difficulty about this. For generations past we have seen, in Harley Street and in the consulting quarters of Liverpool, Manchester and other big cities, a constellation of medical talent unequalled in any other country in the world, but for every man who makes good in Harley Street or in these other centres, there are half-a-dozen perhaps equally good men who have not the opportunity or the means to dig themselves in, and achieve positions in the great hospitals. First-class men of that type are available, and they can be distributed to these regional hospitals all over the country, so that they can be staffed with men of the first rank who will make a great contribution towards the advancement of medicine.
I have no doubt at all that those responsible for this survey will recognise all the good that there is in the voluntary system, which has served us so well in the past, but the time has come when flag days, carnivals and even contributory schemes are unable adequately to support the great expense of these institutions without further help from the State. Those who recognise most fully that the municipal extension of hospitals is necessary should not detract in any way from the tremendous contribution that the voluntary hospitals have made, not only to the health and safety of the people, but in providing education for the doctors. The municipal hospitals date only from the Local Government Act, 1929, but in that short period you have had ill-equipped Poor Law infirmaries in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham, in the counties of Middlesex and Surrey, and in other areas converted into first-class hospitals which compare favourably with some of our best voluntary institutions. That has been a great achievement in a relatively short period, and, if those hospitals are given a fair chance, I believe they can take their place side by side with voluntary institutions, and medical men of distinction will be proud to be associated with them. They should be entitled to a fair share of clinical material. They should not be regarded as mere homes for chronics or incurables. When the waiting lists in the voluntary hospitals have been abolished, the municipal hospitals will be in a position to contribute a greater share to the

teaching of medicine, and they should be great places for refresher courses where general medical practitioners can keep in touch with the latest developments in medicine in a way they have never yet had an opportunity of doing.
The Minister's decision that the responsibility of securing adequate hospitals must evolve on the local authorities is, I suggest from my own experience, a wise one. I have been connected with local authorities, and I have watched other local authorities in this connection, and I am convinced that they can be trusted to discharge this duty of hospital supervision with vision, judgment and singleness of purpose. The local authorities are proud of the voluntary hospitals in their areas. In the Lancashire towns the local voluntary hospital is an institution in which a town takes the greatest pride. The people who administer the local health services are also members of the governing bodies of those hospitals, and to suggest that we have anything to fear from them in the management of the hospitals is to raise an alarm which is unjustifiable. Above all, they will see, what I think is important, that there is a proper linking up between the domiciliary and public health services and the hospital services. That will be a great achievement.
The Minister has done well also to decide that patients should make payment for the treatment they receive, either by assessment or through a contributory scheme. Free treatment for the poor will always be available, but others will hesitate to accept charity and will gladly pay. When the statement about hospitals was made in the House by the Minister last week, I met a friend who is always critical of politicians and asked him what he thought of it. He replied, "It seems to me that the Minister is trying to make the best of both worlds." After thinking that over I decided that it was precisely the Minister's purpose. He is trying to make the best of the world of the municipal hospitals and of the world of voluntary hospitals, and I believe that the House will wish him success in this great undertaking. Certain it is that he could earn no greater fame than to be remembered by posterity as the man who made complete hospital services available for every man, woman and child in every class of the community who was in need of them.

Professor A. V. Hill: There is no time for a discussion of details, and I should like, therefore, to refer to certain matters of principle which I feel we should keep in mind in dealing with this important and complicated question. I cordially agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Blackburn (Captain Elliston) in deprecating hostility between the voluntary hospitals and the State hospitals or between the upholders of these two systems. With a good many of the points brought forward by the hon. Member for West Fulham (Dr. Summerskill) I also agree, but I would dissent from the undue depreciation which she has of the working of the voluntary system. Nobody, at any rate, nobody who knows me, would suppose that I am an upholder of the privileges of the medical profession or of all the arrangements which have grown up in our health services. I realise fully that drastic changes are necessary and that new measures will be required, but it seems to me a pity not to recognise the great good that exists in the present arrangements and the great achievements of medicine and the public health services in this country in the past. One thing which is characteristic of British hospitals—I can speak for one which I know rather intimately—is the high standard of humanity towards the patients. There is no question that the patients in our hospitals are grateful and appreciate what is done for them. That is not the case in all countries. In the State hospitals of Germany—I do not think this depends only on the German character, but it depends also oh their system—patients can be treated simply as experimental animals, and it is recorded of one well-known German physician that he asserted that such and such experiment must be made even if it costs 100 peasants. That attitude is not adopted in our hospitals.
The inherent humanity of our system is a thing we must insist on preserving, and we must try to get the good we can from the existing system and graft on to it the good in other systems. The principle of our Government organisation is that of close co-operation between the good citizen and the organisation of the State. On the one side we have laisser faire or independence. On the other side we have bureaucracy. Neither by itself will work, and we have in all our systems to try and obtain the optimum of the best possible

combination or compromise between the two conditions. So also it should be in medicine. We have a long-established voluntary system which has grown up gradually—and there is usually something good in anything that has grown. We have also the newer public health services which are developing much more rapidly. The reason the voluntary hospitals developed first is that the sick man makes an obvious and natural appeal to human emotion. The prevention of sickness and ill-health does not appeal so naturally to emotion; it appeals more to the intellect. In such matters we have to find the proper compromise, the optimum condition between emotion on the one side and reason on the other. Medicine and public health have two sides—one the treatment of disease or the forestalling of disease as an entity, and the other the treatment of the patient or the social and human side. Here again we must have a compromise and an optimum condition between the two.
The social aspect of disease or of the public health services depends upon such agencies as the hospital almoner, of whom the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt) rightly spoke so warmly. The proper optimum depends upon a proper combination of the scientific treatment of disease on the one side and the humane treatment of the patient as a social being on the other. There is no doubt that in our choice of the compromise between the different factors which affect a matter so complicated as public health we are at present very far from the optimum and from the best compromise. For example, there is no doubt that disease and imperfect physical development leading to disease, and failure to realise fully the capacity of the individual, are largely due to imperfect nutrition. That is on the social side.
There is no doubt that the imperfect development of the human individual is in many cases due to lack of physical education, and I very greatly welcome the efforts that are being made by the Board of Education in introducing a system of physical education into schools and into big industrial undertakings, by which these imperfections may be made good. For reasons which have no relation to health, such a movement may be thwarted by pacifists or others who see in physical education a means of militarising the country. Such nonsense should


be put out of our minds in dealing with matters of public health. We should not play politics when matters of such great public urgency are involved.
In another matter, preventive immunisation, we are very far from the optimum. There is no question that diphtheria could be wiped out completely in this country if we would take the matter in hand with sufficient firmness and boldness. The efforts made in this direction are checked by two sections of opinion, one the antivivisectionists and the others those who talk of the freedom of the individual and object to compulsion. Few people object to compulsory education, but compulsory immunisation is regarded as something different, and an average of 5,000 beds are continuously occupied with diphtheria cases which could be altogether abolished if we would take the trouble to do it. A compromise has to be secured between the different factors involved, between the scientific, the humanitarian, the social, the nutritional, the educational and the financial. We cannot expect to reach the millenium in any one of these directions. We have to try to hit off the best compromise between the different factors involved. It is essential, if good results are to be obtained, that individual parties in the compromise should not play politics but should work together for the public good and recognise that in such a complicated matter compromise is really necessary.
On scientific grounds I personally should like to go a very long way in the direction of prevention through public health services, physical education and the like. Others, more moved by humanitarian considerations, would naturally tend to go further in the direction of preserving the sick and the old. Others would be more concerned with the interests and prestige and the healthy state of the medical profession. Others would be more concerned with the desire to assert the power of the State over the individual, and with introducing their own particular ideal organisation or their own particular ideology into what was done. Others, too, would be more concerned with preserving the individual and the independence of our present system. A compromise must be worked out between these differing views. There is something to be said for all of them and the compromise needs to be

worked out not by medical people alone but by those interested in the different aspects of the problem. Laymen, medicals, the nursing services, and the social services, all are involved.
In the end it is clear that we must have a universal medical service at some time. Whether it will depend on a State medical service in the sense that the Navy is a State service, or upon an insurance system, is a matter which there is no time to discuss on an occasion like this, and no doubt many of us would have no definite opinion, but that a universal public health service is necessary both for preventive work and for the treatment of individuals there is no doubt. That it should be based on the family idea many of us are convinced, and the experiment which has been made at the Peckham health centre is one which we should like to see developed in the future.
We must not rush in and try to build up a system without careful thought and experiment. It is an experimental subject, and if we rush in too quickly we shall get the same difficulties and scandals as we find in large departments which have been suddenly created to deal with war emergencies. Nor, on the other hand, must we go too slowly, because human lives and human happiness are involved. A number of our younger medical people are very socially-minded. There is no doubt about that. Those who are in contact with them—and I have several in my own family—know how socially-minded they are. They are not yet spoiled by prosperity, perhaps, and I do not know whether they will be spoiled or whether they are capable of being spoiled. A little while ago I was told by a student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital of an attempt to get up a debate on a State medical service. He said it had been found impossible to arrange for the debate. I was somewhat astonished, because I thought there must be somebody there who would be prepared to support the institution of a State medical service, and I told him so. He replied that I had completely misunderstood what he meant. The position was that there was nobody who would take up the opposite point of view. In a few years they may think differently. They are idealists at the present time; they will gain experience later which may make them modify their views. There is no doubt that we have


the basis of a very socially-minded medical profession, and I myself am very much inclined to let these young people develop in their own way.
If we let things develop, I believe there is every chance of obtaining the kind of medical arrangement that many of us look forward to. I regret it when temptation is put in the way of a man to neglect his public duty because of private profit. That temptation is put in the way of any man who has both panel patients and a private practice of his own. With that temptation before him it is very difficult for any man to avoid unconsciously slipping over into making what he can from his private practice, to the disadvantage of his panel patients. I am told that a State service may be inefficient, and that it would be impossible for a full-time State medical service to be sufficiently elastic to allow a man to be privately employed by the patient who had called him in. I cannot really believe that a State service is necessarily inefficient. Nobody says that the Royal Navy is inefficient. There were days when the Royal Navy lived- upon piracy; now it lives upon fixed incomes. Some may perhaps regard the medical profession as living by piracy, but even if some members of it came to be State servants, as the officers in the Royal Navy are, I cannot believe that their morals would depreciate or that they would show a lower standard of humanity or decency or science.
I would deprecate any attempt to lay down beforehand how far we should go in any direction. Speaking as an experimental scientist, I say that the important thing in medicine is to experiment. Take the systems, let them develop side by side, find out what is good, find out what is bad and discard it, and in that way progress as animals have progressed, and as our social system has progressed—by evolution. I welcome the proposal of the Minister for strengthening our hospital service. I believe it is a step in the direction of gradual development which we all welcome, but we shall have to go a good deal further, and there is a great deal more to be done, before we can see the end of this business. I have satisfied myself that, for the time being, the Minister is proposing the right thing. I hope that we may all go forward, in this matter of improving our public health

services, in the spirit of friendly compromise with one another, not failing to realise the urgency which exists, but being willing, at the same time, to see the good in the different factors and in the different systems of medicine, not seeking to get a perfect system and so failing to get a system that will really work.

Major Haden Guest: Like many other Members, I regret that we have such a short time for our Debate. I believe that the Minister agrees with me. I am glad that we have had powerful support from the other side of the House for what the hon. Member who has just spoken called first a universal medical service and subsequently called a State medical service. I do not want to concentrate the few minutes at my disposal upon the discussion of this hospital question, because, although the question is important, it is certainly not urgent at the present time. It is not the most urgent question which could be brought before this House. There are very urgent health questions that ought to be brought before this House on a future occasion, and I hope that we shall have an opportunity of doing so.
Tuberculosis has been mentioned several times, and I want to refer to it again for a special reason. There has been a considerable increase in tuberculosis in this country during the last year. The summary report of the Department of Health for Scotland says that the figures for the first half-year relating to tuberculosis were provisional, but that the incidence was still high, over 4,300 cases having been notified in the first six months. Deaths were also more numerous. In 1940 the death-rate from tuberculosis in Scotland was 82 per 100,000, the highest figure since 1932. It happens that in the "British Medical Journal" for 27th September there was a very interesting article by Drs. Laidlaw and Macfarlane, analysing the incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis in Glasgow, and indicating what, in their opinion, was the reason for the considerable rise in the number of cases. I shall not recite the figures which they gave, but I would like to direct the attention of hon. Members to the conclusions to which these two doctors came.
These doctors very carefully analysed all the cases from 1939 to 1940. Their


conclusion was that the cause of the increase in the number of cases of tuberculosis was a combination of long hours, overtime, strain, and ill-spent leisure. I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that that is not what we should have expected in the ordinary way to cause the increase in tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a poverty disease. It comes out of the slums, and it depends upon malnutrition. In the case of the rise in the incidence of tuberculosis in Glasgow —I think it is occurring all over the country where industrial conditions prevail—these officers drew attention to causes which arise out of the strain of war-time production. Had I the time, I could add many quotations giving the scientific authority for the point of view which I am putting forward. I say emphatically to the Minister that we are not using our great public health organisation at the present time to avoid increase in that kind of disease.
In every county council in the United Kingdom, and in a multitude of other local authorities, we have very highly qualified and competent medical officers of health who are performing very important public duties, and who still have time and energy to perform other duties. Just as a factory producing the necessities of peace-time can be switched over to war-time production, so this very important organisation of medical officers of health can be switched over in wartime to the supervision, control and direction of all the conditions of life of people who are employed in industry, in order to avoid the bad results of which this rise in tuberculosis is an example—I am afraid only one example. I believe that what I suggest can be done comparatively easily, that it is urgent, and that it should be done.
May I remind the House that the chief functions of medical officers in the Army are not to treat the diseases of soldiers, pick-up casualties on the field, bandage them and send them from the front line to some aid post, and from there to a hospital where some other section of the Army Medical Service will treat their injuries; it is not those curative, medical or surgical functions which are the most important, but those of keeping the Army fighting fit. These functions are carried out by supervising all the details of life, ranging from clothing, billets and

camping accommodation to hours of work, hours of sleep and morale. Those functions make the medical officer indispensable in any well-run unit, and make it possible for a unit to be at its fittest— to be, in fact, fighting fit. We realise the immense importance of those functions for the Army, but it is very remarkable that, while, in public speeches. Ministers and others constantly stress the urgent importance of greater production, how very much larger the industrial army now is and how it is working long hours under black-out and all kinds of conditions which impose a very great strain, we have not yet placed supervision of the hygiene and welfare—in the broadest use of the word—of factory workers on a satisfactory footing
I cannot give the number of medical officers who are in charge, whole-time or part-time, of the factories, not because I do not know them, but because the figures were given to me confidentially—no doubt the Minister of Health knows what they are—but I can tell the House that the total number of medical officers who are engaged in the supervision of men engaged on production in this country is insignificant compared with the number in any of the Forces, and it is really a waste of power, ability, capacity and organisation, which is ready and waiting to be used, that it is not employed in this way.
That is all that I shall deal with to-day, although I had a good many other things to say. Perhaps on some future occasion there may be other opportunities for dealing with other matters, such, for instance, as the question, which has not been raised in the House, of the medical organisation which will be required at the end of this war when the epidemics to which one of my hon. Friends has referred are threatening. May I say that at the present moment the greatest epidemic of typhus fever known in European history is raging in Spain? I have that on excellent authority. There is typhus fever in Russia, and there are epidemics of malaria and other illnesses in other parts of the world. There is not the slightest doubt that at the end of this war we shall have the greatest world public health problem to face that we have ever had. It is, I venture to think, much more urgent than the precise relations between voluntary and municipal hospitals that we should have, after the war, an organisation


capable of dealing with that problem. We should have that organisation right now and I hope our American friends will co-operate in it. The Rockefeller Foundation is already working in Spain, and I hope they will be willing to come into an organisation of that kind.
I see, however, that I am being led away. I will not allow myself to be led into the paths of interesting speculation about the control of medical man-power. That is a matter which we must leave for another occasion, but I hope that the Minister in his reply will give us some hope that the potential public health and medical resources of the country will be turned to deal with this very important question of the hygienic supervision of those who are working in the nation's productive effort, in order that we may keep them fighting fit for the work of production.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Ernest Brown): I am sure the House will agree that this has been one of the most interesting Debates we have had for a long time about this vital subject. I am sure also that hon. Members in all parts of the House would wish that the Debate had been longer, but, as the House will gather from the statement made by the Lord President of the Council at Question Time, the usual channels have been busy, and I have no doubt that we shall have an opportunity in the not too distant future to have a Debate on this vital question of the health of the nation, which is a much bigger thing than either doctors, hospitals or a score of other things.
Of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Dr. Howitt) pointed out, in the excellent speech with which he opened the Debate, that one of the things we have to take into account in our measurements of all our problems, both present and future, is the extraordinary variety of disturbances the nation has to face in wartime. Another of my hon. Friends was a little optimistic about the extra burdens which I or anybody else can cast on medical officers of health at this moment, because one of the outstanding features of the war has been the extraordinary variety of new duties which medical officers of health have had to shoulder and have shouldered—and which have meant for them many far from routine

operations. When dealing with facts and figures, I have, as the House already knows, done my best to produce such statistics as will give us a general guide, and in a few weeks' time I hope to have a shortened report in which I shall incorporate such available statistics over the whole field as will give the House a fair and reasonable guide as to the trend of public health, because I think it is vital that we should have an understanding not merely of the things we have to do now but of the things we shall have to do in the future.
When one considers, first of all, the extraordinary changes in population which have taken place in the last two years, and that millions of people are now living in another environment, one can see the pressure which has been put in the reception areas upon public services—in some cases already before the war too small for their duties. When one considers the abnormal life people lead in the periods of heavy raids, the life that is going on in the shelters of our land, and the plans that had to be made for casualties on a scale which happily at the moment has not yet been reached, but which may be, it will be quite clear to the House and to the country as a whole that our normal standards of measurement by statistics must always be viewed against that background. I have only said this to show two or three of the outstanding divergences between peace-time experience and war-time experience in the health field.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading put the matter in perspective when he said that, considering the disturbances already referred to, the health of the nation had been surprisingly good. Of course, that is so. Personally, I think it is bad, psychologically, to be always talking of epidemics, except in so far as that discussion may lead to preventive action. I think our psychology last winter was a little awry in that we were expecting every morning something which did not happen. So far as I am concerned, that will not be the case next winter. What we want to do is to make as widespread as we can the services which make for the health of the nation, and side by side with that to spread more widely than ever a simple, elementary knowledge of the things to be done in the home and else-where which help to keep people fighting fit.
While I am on that topic, may I point out to the House that a great deal has been done and is being done in that field; and in a sentence or two I would like to pay my own tribute to the admirable work done, in liaison with the Ministry and other bodies, by the Central Council for Health Education. If hon. Members have not seen the whole series of pamphlets and leaflets that have been produced, I would draw their attention to them, and also the attention of the general public. They deal with problems which are very difficult, and there is one which I am surprised to see has not been mentioned to-day, a problem not merely of disease but of dirt too. It is not without significance that the second of the hints published by the Central Council for Health Education is entitled "Scabies and Impetigo." I can tell the House, although it has not been mentioned to-day, that it has given not only me but every medical officer of health in every area concerned not only furiously to think but furiously to act. In reception areas we are having to provide scores of new sick bays in order that that particular ailment may be dealt with properly and effectively. More than that, we shall have to go nearer the root of the matter, and a little later on I hope to make an Order, under a Regulation which has now come into force, which will give the medical officer of health more power in regard to inspection than he has had up to date.
Then there are pamphlets on measles, on influenza, the war against lice, and on saving children from diphtheria. There is one with the title of "Bugs." All these leaflets are virile and simple; the subjects include some not ordinarily talked about, and I understand that one or two of them are even too vigorous for some of our popular Press. These are among pamphlets which have been produced in order that the nation may know, not in general terms, but in specific, definite terms about these matters. My hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer) will be interested in "Health in the Shelter," "Health for A.R.P. Workers," and "Health Hints About Sleep." I only mention these to show the House that we are taking not merely an abstract view of our health problems but are doing our best to get down to positive and preventive action, not merely in the field of medicine and hospital treatment, but in the sphere of education. I

regard this health effort as a magnificent opportunity for spreading knowledge about health. We shall do our best to see that this process of education is intensified and made even more effective.
With regard to the general position, there has been a good deal of talk about epidemics, but I thought that there were one or two other general tests about which the House might like to have the latest, information. In normal times we do not merely take statistics for certain diseases, but the general death-rate, the infantile mortality rate and the maternal mortality rate as important indices. The general death-rate in 1940 was 14.3, including air-raid deaths of civilians. That figure is also not comparable with those of recent previous years, because deaths of non-civilians have been excluded since the outbreak of war. The figure for 1939 was 12.1, and in 1940 it was 14.3, excluding the deaths of non-civilians.
The 1939 figures relating to diseases for England and Wales require to be taken with a little caution, because I have no doubt that in the great movements of population that took place notification was a little slower than previously, or than this year. When general conclusions are based on the figures for 1939, those figures should be taken with that caution. The infantile mortality rate was 56 per 1,000 births in 1940, six per 1,000 above the low record of 1939, but lower than the rate for any year previous to 1938. The maternal mortality rate per 1,000 declined to a new low record of 2.61 as compared with 2.82 in 1939. I have no doubt that a good deal of that has to do with the wartime maternity hostels which we have set up in the reception areas, and it is a source of gratification to me and to all concerned to see how, every week, these mothers from London are taking more and more advantage of the opportunities given them by this new service. In our wartime maternity homes alone nearly 30,000 new babies have been born in this period of the war. It is a source of gratification to the House to know that the maternal mortality rate in war-time is at a new low level.
It is true that the condition of public health generally remains satisfactory. One or two figures may interest the House. In the early part of 1940 there was an appreciable increase in cerebrospinal fever, and a recurrence to a less marked extent in the


early part of this year. The incidence fell from 1,380 in February to 420 in September, and the mortality rate of this disease has been reduced in the last few years to one-third of the previous figure. Measles, which has been prevalent in the past 18 months, has almost completely disappeared at present, the figure of new cases for September being 2,768 as against 29,804 in September of last year, and 62,737 cases at the peak in February of this year. Scarlet fever and diphtheria have never been high, and the incidence is less than in the corresponding month of last year, and approximately the same as in 1939.
Several Members have rightly called attention to the increase in tuberculosis. I was interested in the way in which the hon. and gallant Member for North Islington (Major Haden Guest) fixed his attention on the Glasgow figures. I am happy to say that our experience in England and Wales has not been quite the same. The facts are that in 1913 the death-rate from pulmonary tuberculosis per million was 958, in 1918 1,165, while in 1939 the rate had been reduced to 476. A point brought out by the hon. Member for South Tottenham was that in the county of Middlesex in 1940 the figure had increased by approximately 10 per cent. The figures he gave the House for between 11 years and 20 years is not information which is borne out over the whole field. When the House has the figures for the first quarter of January of this year, it will find a reduction of seven per cent. as compared with the first quarter of 1940. I hope to have these figures out within a fortnight and those for the second quarter as soon after as may be.
With regard to young females between 15 and 25, in 1913 the rate was 1,020, which by 1918 had gone up to 1,580. Owing to the increase of services and the attention given, it was down by 1939 to 762 in that group. Members have called attention to the 1940 figures compared with the 1930 figures, rising to 881 in that group per million. The first quarter of 1941 shows a slight decline of about four per cent. in that group. These figures illustrate the progressive improvement in general social measures as well as in particular health services, and especially the improvement in housing between the

wars. While I am Minister of Health I shall always regard housing as a vital health service, the foundation of the health services. The sooner we get to the point when we can resume our progress, the better for the health of the nation.
Directly we saw these figures I instituted an inquiry by my own people, with the Medical Research Council, and asked for an interim report on the causes of the rise. I hope to get the interim report as quickly as may be, to inform all the authorities concerned, and, of course, on the appropriate occasion, to let the House know the view of those who make the inquiry as to the cause of the rise. I could not go into great detail in the time I have, but I could not agree too much with my hon. Friend in what he said about hours and overstrain. I think that all who followed the most interesting series of reports on industrial fatigue in war-time, instituted in 1917, came long ago to the conclusion that you cannot, over any long period, equate production with hours. The ideal for the nation is to have such a state of strength and health and skill that you get the maximum production in the normal working day, not the abnormal hour. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has his eye very much on this particular side of the industrial problem.
With regard to tuberculosis services, it was necessary to make the preparations we did for the casualties which have not yet arisen. We should have been lacking in our duty if we had not had ready the services for the wounded and the sick which came to us in the course of the war, whether they were Army or civilian casualties, or the casualties of war industry. In doing that, we had to limit somewhat the number of beds. I have that matter under attention, and beds have been released. I propose to do my very best to meet the need for beds. Here we are up against the problem not merely of beds, but of nurses, too. We are giving urgent attention 1o that. As hon. Members know, the treatment and nursing of infectious diseases is a very special problem. The hon. Member for South Tottenham need not fear that there will be any undue congestion there. Of course, the duty of the local authorities to carry out their tuberculosis schemes, covering clinics and health visitors as well as sanatoria, has been continuous.

Sir J. Lamb: There is a shortage not only of nurses, but of domestic staff in institutions.

Mr. Brown: I am well aware of that. The problem of domestic staff exists not merely in regard to T.B., but in all our hospitals. My hon. Friend has already written me about a hospital in his area in which he is interested and he knows from his connection with the local authorities' associations how wide the problem is. I am sure that the authorities responsible for carrying out the duty imposed upon them by Parliament in this vital field will not merely continue to intensify their efforts to deal with contacts. I do not believe that they are not fully aware of the urgency of that problem.
The Debate has naturally turned a good deal away from the general health problem to the statement that I made recently. I would like, not in protest against what my hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham said, but in support of it, to refer to the fact which he pointed out that in the emergency hospitals scheme the London Group Sector Officer was from a voluntary hospital. That is true, but I must add, in fairness to those who devised this organisation, that each officer has two deputies, one for the voluntary hospitals in the Sector and one for the municipal hospitals. Similarly, in each Sector there is a voluntary and a municipal Lay Sector Officer, and also a voluntary and a municipal matron. This duality is also in force at headquarters. At the Ministry of Health, under the Director of Emergency Medical Services concerned with the London Region, there is a deputy drawn from the municipal side and one drawn from the voluntary side.
The House in this Debate has shown quite clearly that it understood that we were dealing with principles, and getting the machinery right for working out the details. Indeed, I made that clear when I answered supplementary Questions on the statement that I made. The Debate has been very interesting to me, because it has brought out that, while Members had their own views about this matter, the presentation of this problem to the country has meant a very wide acceptance of the line of approach—whatever views Members may have in terms of ideology and, of course, there are Members who always desire to shatter things and to re-

mould them nearer to the heart's desire, and there are, alas, few Members who have the chance of doing that. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Blackburn (Captain Elliston) said that we were making the best of both worlds. Why should we not? If there were three or four worlds, we should make the best of all of them.
It has been a good thing to have this Debate. People who would like to abolish voluntary hospitals have expressed their view. On the other hand, there has been a gratifying indication that the House understands that we can have confidence in the democratic representatives who will come into the discussions and make these schemes, after a survey, to look after democratic interests. It seems to me part of my political lot to get people around a table when they have never met before. In 1932 I got the miners and the mineowners around the table together, and I seem to have been getting people together around a table ever since. I deliberately used the word "partnership" to describe the intended relationship between the voluntary and municipal hospitals. It is not a new arrangement. Financial arrangements between them have been common since 1875, by which voluntary hospitals provide services under contractual arrangements with a council. It has been within the power of a council to make contributions, not on a contractual basis, since 1915.
I have taken heart from the Debate today to believe that, on the whole, whatever Members themselves may think theoretically and ideally, they realise what was previously stated in the moving speech of the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Professor Hill), having regard to facts, history, traditions and people's loyalty to institutions they have known for a long time. I would say to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Dr. Morgan) that there are many towns where the local hospitals, whether municipal on the one hand, or voluntary on the other, or both, as in many cases, have not the monopoly of affection of any party but the affection of the citizens as a whole and have very strong popular local feeling behind them. These facts must be faced. The preliminary discussions have led to this statement, and all I would say now is, Let the good work go on, so that in the end it really does mean what we mean to


have—an effective hospital service of every kind for every citizen in the country.
I am sure that Members of the House who read with very great interest that remarkable book of Mr. Seebohm Rowntree's "Progress and Poverty," containing an extraordinarily detailed examination of social conditions in York compared with 30 years ago will take courage and heart, for it shows two things: First, that all the efforts that we have made in this country, men of all sorts and conditions and of all parties, to build up enormously effective medical and health services have been well rewarded by the progressive improvement in the standard of health and length of life of the nation, while, on the other hand, it reminds us of how much more there remains to be done in the days that lie ahead of us. As far as I and my administration are concerned, I can assure the House that I shall take the guidance of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle) and other hon. Members who have spoken in this Debate, and shall not cease to look for opportunities in war to find an additional service which may continue when the war is won and we can carry on the great improvements which were in progress when it began.

MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (VISITS TO IRELAND).

Sir Irving Albery: I wish to raise to-day the question of the prevention of the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) from visiting Northern Ireland on what he considered to be one of his Parliamentary duties. This prohibition raises a most important question, concerning not just the hon. Member for Shettleston, but every Member of this House of Commons, and, outside this House, those citizens whom we here represent. I do not intend to attempt in any way to deal with the personal position of the hon. Member for Shettleston in this question. He and his friends would probably resent it if I did. He and his party have always been quite capable of speaking for themselves and making their own case in this House, and, therefore, the aspect of the case with which I wish to deal is the more general one and the manner in which it affects Members of this House of Commons generally and the public outside.
Two main issues seem to arise. The first is the right of the Home Office to prevent a Member of Parliament from going where he pleases in the United Kingdom on his Parliamentary duties, and the second is the refusal to allow a Member of this House to inquire into detention under Regulation 18B. As regards the first point, it does not appear that the answers that were given by the Under-Secretary of State the other day have made that position very clear. He appears quite definitely to have claimed the right on behalf of the Home Office to prohibit, and, where they thought necessary, to prevent Members of Parliament from visiting certain parts of the British Isles in pursuit of what they themselves regarded as their Parliamentary duties. On the other hand, side by side with that, he gave certain explanations as to the manner in which permission could be obtained, and when I put these explanations in conjunction with the fact that a great many Members of Parliament have no difficulty whatever in going to Northern Ireland for various causes, the restriction outside the Home Office, at any rate up to the present, seems to be something of a farce. I gather that if you liked to go to one of the Departments of State and said you wished to visit Northern Ireland, say, to study health, or possibly to study the defences, I presume you would get permission. I do not know exactly on what basis those Members who did go obtained permission, but it does not seem to be very difficult to obtain, because you can also go for domestic affairs. All that makes it the more serious that a Member of Parliament should be prevented from going there by the Home Office if he considered that his duty as a Member of Parliament justified and necessitated such a visit.
The second point, the question of detention under Regulation I8B, is to a large extent bound up with the first one, and on that I must quote a question put by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) and the Answer to it:
Do I understand the position to be that the Home Secretary imprisons a British citizen and then refuses to permit a Member of this House to investigate whether that imprisonment is legitimate or not?

MR. PEAKE: It is quite obvious that we cannot make exceptions from these general rules in the cases of Members of Parliament.

HON. MEMBERS: Why not?

MR. PEAKE: If we were to permit the hon. Member for Shettleston to travel for this purpose, we should have to be equally prepared to allow any members of the general public to do so.
[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th Oct., 1941; col. 1250; vol. 374.]
I cannot believe that the Under-Secretary in saying that was quite accurate. He cannot be accurately stating the views of the Home Office. It does not seem to me to be possible. There obviously is a great deal of difference in a Member of Parliament carrying out his functions as a Member of Parliament demanding a permit for such a purpose. I would add that although I personally cannot see that any Member of Parliament can have either the same necessity, the same justification or the same right, at the same time there are members of the public who could make a good claim. Take, for instance, the correspondent of a newspaper. I would like to ask the Home Secretary whether, if a newspaper desired to send its correspondent to make inquiries concerning a case of detention in which perhaps they believed a mistake had occurred, that newspaper would be prevented.
If we take the case of Northern Ireland, suppose a newspaper already had a correspondent in Northern Ireland who made these inquiries. Would that correspondent be prevented from conveying his information to the paper, and would the paper be prevented from using it? I take it that it will be admitted that newspapers have no prior rights over Members of Parliament. Are we to assume that if a man is arrested and detained under Regulation 18B and held without trial, he is then to be deprived both of the protection of the House of Commons and the protection of the Press? These are matters which certainly require to be cleared up before this Debate closes.
The aggressor nations, when they prepared for this war, adopted what they believed to be the most efficient form of government for their aggression. In other words, they adopted Fascist forms of government. Since we have been at war and on the defensive we have been compelled to adopt much of the Fascist machine for the purposes of defence. There have, however, been two main differences. First, we still maintain the importance of using this machinery with humanity and fair play, and, secondly,

we maintain the importance of still upholding and using our Parliamentary institutions. The Prime Minister himself— whom I am indeed glad to see in his place to-day—has stated in this House that he believes Parliament can make a contribution towards winning this war. We share that faith, and I think we share it mainly because we are justified in believing that a country which can work its Parliamentary institutions as we can, and which act as a cushion between the drastic Regulations which have to be passed by the State and the ordinary citizen, can give greater personal effort and will have greater staying power than any country which is governed by tyranny, as are the aggressor nations. For that and other reasons we believe that our prospects of winning this war are improved by maintaining our Parliamentary traditions.
I want to say a word or two about the Home Secretary. I may have appeared on this matter to have badgered him at Question Time and, in fact, on any possible occasion. I have always had the greatest admiration for the administrative and Parliamentary abilities of the right hon. Gentleman. I have to-day, but I think he has added to his great burden somewhat unnecessariliy in administering some of these Regulations, and not altogether with advantage to the State. I also believe—and this applies to many persons who attain prominence—that he is a man of strong prejudices, and I doubt whether he has been wise in taking as much responsibility as he has taken personally for the administration of some of these Regulations.
As other Members wish to take part in the Debate, I will be brief. This House has given under special circumstances, and in time of crisis, most exceptional powers to the Government. The Prime Minister has rather emphasised the fact, in reply to questions in this House, that these powers have been specially given. This House has most willingly, without quibble and without delay, given to the Prime Minister any powers which he has regarded as being necessary for assisting in the winning of this war. But I think that this House gave them feeling sure that these were emergency powers and that they were only to be used in so far as it was absolutely necessary against Fascists and traitors. Powers of that kind, given in


such circumstances, should not in any way be treated as normal provisions of the law.
There appears to me to be a definite distinction between claiming Parliamentary privilege additional to the Statute laws and customs and claiming for public purposes exemptions from emergency Regulations, and this distinction has undoubtedly been more than once recognised and provided for by this House in its past history. The more you restrict the liberty of the private citizen, the more imperative it is that the liberties of Parliament should be completely preserved.

Sir Hugh O'Neill: I would like to say a word or two on this question, which was so ably raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery). I do not speak in any way in my capacity as the Member representing an Ulster constituency. I do not think that is the point, but I would like to say a few words as an old Member of this House and one who feels keenly about the rights, Privileges and powers of Members of the House of Commons. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department said the other day, in answer to a Question dealing with the refusal of an exit permit to the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) that it was not right or proper that Members of Parliament should be treated in any different manner from members, of the public. But on this question of permits to and from Northern Ireland Members of Parliament are already treated differently from members of the general public. For instance, we Members who represent Ulster constituencies are allowed to travel freely between Northern Ireland and London. I believe that the Regulations governing the issue of these permits provide that the permits can always be granted in the case of a journey which is being performed on any point of national importance. I do not know how far it is a question of national importance for a Member of Parliament to desire to travel to Northern Ireland in order to investigate the case of a person who is detained under Regulation I8B. I should have thought it was a question of national importance for Members of Parliament to exercise their rights, and privileges in that way. I think the Regulations also provide that people travelling on ordinary essential business can be allowed to travel freely.

Surely, it could not be said that it was not the essential business of a Member of Parliament to desire to travel to Northern Ireland in order to take up a question of this kind. It seems to me that the only consideration which ought to weigh with the Home Secretary would be if he thought that the Member of Parliament concerned was himself likely to do something prejudicial to the national security. If that were so, probably he could be arrested, and obviously, if that were so, the permit could be properly refused. But I cannot see how it can be refused in the case of a Member of Parliament desiring to go to any part of the United Kingdom, and, after all, Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom, and it is within the direct sphere of the House and directly under the control of the House of Commons. Speaking as an old Member of this House, I cannot help feeling that the Home Secretary has made a mistake and that it would be wise to allow the permit to be issued.
There is one further point which the Home Secretary may possibly make. I believe the hon. Member for Shettleston applied for a permit rot only to visit Northern Ireland, but also to visit Southern Ireland. The visit to Southern Ireland may, of course, raise rather different considerations, because Southern Ireland is not in any way within the sphere of control by this House, but I should not be prepared to say to what extent it would be right or wrong for Members of Parliament to be granted or to be refused permits to visit Southern Ireland. Clearly, Southern Ireland is in a different category, but with regard to that, I would like to make the observation that, having read these Regulations many times, so far as I can see they treat the whole of Ireland as if it was one, and that, I think, is a mistake. As far as I know, exactly the same considerations apply in the Regulations as regards a visit to Southern Ireland as to Northern Ireland. If the Home Secretary makes the point that the reason the permit was refused was that it included the request to visit Southern Ireland, then, I would ask, why are the Regulations framed to govern Ireland as a whole, both North and South, on the same principles? I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised this matter. I feel it is a very important matter affecting the rights and privileges of Members of the House of Commons,


and I hope that the Home Secretary, after he has heard the Debate, may think it wise to allow the permit to be issued.

Mr. Mander: I wish to associate myself with what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill), and to call the attention of the House to certain precedents in this matter. I take the view that unless there is some overwhelming consideration of public security to the contrary, it is the duty of the Home Secretary to permit a Member of Parliament to go, not only to his own constituency, but to any part of the electoral area, and indeed, to any British Dominion, and Eire is a British Dominion. I can well understand that if there is a question of secret troop concentrations or something of that kind, the Government might well refuse to allow an hon. Member to go, but no question of that sort arises at the present time.
I find that in 1918, in the course of the last war, Regulations were introduced governing the passage of persons from Ireland to this country, and as soon as the Irish Members got to know about it, they were extremely angry and raised the matter in the House as a question of Privilege as soon as they were able to do so. In the Debate that took place, Mr. Dillon, Mr. Swift McNeill, Mr. Joyce and Mr. Devlin expressed their views in vigorous terms. They pointed out that they had suddenly been required to get a passport and to have a photograph placed upon it. They refused to do so, they made representations to the Government Departments, and the question of the photograph was wiped out altogether. The words "Member of Parliament" were placed after the person's name, so that the passport had not much value, because there was no means of identification. I would point out that there was an immediate differentiation between Members of Parliament and the general public, as the general public had to have photographs. Your predecessor on that occasion, Mr. Speaker, did not permit the question of Privilege to be raised, because he held that the matter had been known at any rate to some Members of the Irish party for some weeks, and, therefore, he ruled that it was not new. I mention the matter because it does come

into the story, and it aroused very strong feelings among the Irish Members at that time.
The other precedents to which I wish to refer has a more direct bearing on the matter. In Clause 4 of a draft Bill defining the Privileges of the Senate of Burma which had been prepared under the instructions of a Joint Committee appointed by the two Houses of the Burma Legislature to consider this question, the following words appeared—and if a thing is good for Burma, I should have thought that it might be good for the Parliament of Great Britain, too:
Subject to the provisions of any special Act every Member shall have freedom of movement in Burma except in those areas which are not part of the territories of His Majesty and which are not included in the Second Schedule of the Government of Burma Act, 1935.
A similar provision was contained in the draft Bill prepared by a Committee of the Bengal Legislative Assembly, and the words of that provision were as follow:
Every member of the Assembly shall have freedom of movement to his constituency or any other place within the Province for the purpose of the discharge of his duties as a member, unless he is arrested, detained or imprisoned or otherwise dealt with on a criminal charge or in a criminal proceeding.
That is a very sound and constitutional doctrine. I imagine it was based on what was assumed to be the practice in the Mother of Parliaments, and I venture to hope that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, after he has heard the views of the House, and desiring, as I know he will desire, to bow to the clearly expressed will of hon. Members, will see his way to withdraw the particular interpretation he has placed upon this Order and so bow to what are undoubtedly the views of the House.

Squadron-Leader Donner: I rise to offer a few brief observations for the consideration of the House. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that this is not a matter which merely affects the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern). It is a principle which affects every Member of the House and also, I think, every Member of the House of Lords. The question raises more than one point, but all but one, I believe, are subsidiary, and I should like therefore to focus attention on the fundamental and main point which was referred to by the


hon. Member who spoke last, namely, the free access to every part of the Kingdom of Members of the House. Certain organs of the Press have made intelligent anticipations and have attributed a particular view to the Home Secretary, the view that no distinction must be made between the general public and Members of this House, and I believe more than one Member of the House shares that view. I believe that the contrary is the truth. I believe that one must draw a distinction between Members of the House and the general public, if only because Members of the House have certain constitutional functions to fulfil, whereas the ordinary citizen has no such similar function. The question of Privilege has also been raised in various organs of the Press. It is a mistaken view to believe that this is a question of Privilege because we are not here dealing with Privilege in the ordinary and proper interpretation and meaning of that word. The word "Privilege," as I understand it, when applied to Members of this House, means in effect a safeguard in order to enable Members of Parliament to do their duty and to fulfil their Parliamentary functions.
There are two schools of thought in relation to this matter. One says that in order to win this war we must as a nation surrender a great number of our liberties and much of the freedom to which we are all accustomed, and the other believes that the fewer infringements that are made during the course of the war as regards the individual liberty of the citizen, the better for the country. I sympathise with the second view. How difficult it is to regain liberties once forfeited we know from the last war. "Dora" remained for 20 years and never disappeared. Not only that, but there are in England, there are in public life to-day, men who publicly avow their belief in regimentation, in the infringement of individual liberty and in State control. Therefore. I believe it is better to try and get through this war and win it by surrendering the fewest liberties that we possibly can. I agree entirely with my hon. and gallant Friend who laid so much emphasis on the point that the more Government infringe the liberties of the ordinary citizen, the more important it becomes to maintain the comparative immunity of Members of Parliament, and

the greater is the need to safeguard Members of Parliament, because when the war is over this House, and the Members of this House, will alone be in a position to grapple with the great problem which is bound to face us, and that is the problem of the octopus growth of our bureaucracy, which is growing every day. I was not therefore altogether happy when I heard the Under-Secretary for the Home Department say the other day that a Member of Parliament would require some kind of certificate or sanction by a Government Department in order to travel to any part of the United Kingdom. I would remind hon. Members of Jonathan Swift's witty and satirical work, "The Tale of a Tub," in which there appears this sentence:
Last week I saw a woman flayed," he observes, "and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse.
You, Sir, will hardly believe how much it will alter Parliament for the worse if we allow greater infringements of the liberties of Members of the House than are absolutely essential for the purpose of winning the war.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: May I ask the hon. and gallant Member how he explains his present attitude, in view of the fact that he supported General Franco, who suppressed Parliamentary representation?

Squadron-Leader Donner: I have always upheld our own particular form of democracy in this country, constitutional monarchy, and I have always believed in it, but I have never expressed the belief that democracy in a Latin country has ever been other than corrupt and incompetent. I earnestly hope that the Home Secretary will be able to see his way to rescind his decision, because I believe it is important even in time of war to maintain the fullest liberties of the House, which is essential if Parliament after the war is to stem the encroachments of bureaucratic control.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I thought it would probably be for the convenience of the House if I addressed it on this matter, after the case had been made. I must say that some surprising things have been said. The hon. and gallant Member for Basingstoke (Squadron-Leader Donner) says that democracy is


reasonably good for the English—[HON. MEMBERS: "British."]—I hope he meant the British—but is not altogether good for the French, or the Italians or the Spaniards.

Earl Winterton: What has that to do with the point?

Mr. Morrison: I think the Noble Lord might set me an example in good conduct.

Earl Winterton: I am supporting the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Morrison: I am always anxious to learn from the Noble Lord how to behave myself. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery) also made an extraordinary statement. He likened the Defence Regulations—which have been made by virtue of legislation passed through the House of Commons, and are subject always to challenge by the House and to being upset by the House in a free Debate—to the kind of administration which obtains in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. That is not very complimentary to the British way of doing things and not very complimentary to this House. To liken the Defence Regulations and the Emergency Powers Act, and the way in which they are administered, to Fascism is, I think, a thing that ought not to be said in the British House of Commons.

Sir I. Albery: I did not intend to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but since he now says that I have said something which ought never to have been said, I would like to remind him that we have in many ways been forced to adopt Fascist measures, even in matters of finance, economy and trade.

Mr. Morrison: I do not think that that is exactly a helpful remark when our country is fighting for its life against Fascism, because it is Fascism. I imagine that that will be quoted in other quarters. My hon. Friend also said something which I do not really think is true. He paid me the compliment of saying that I was a capable administrator and so on—which I very much appreciate—but he went on to say that he thought I was a person of strong prejudices and took too much on myself in the administration of these Defence Regulations. I have been administering the Regulations for the last

12 months. It is a great responsibility to administer many of the Defence Regulations. It is a terrible responsibility that the House has imposed upon the Home Secretary, and I can assure the House— and I think the House will accept my assurance—that I do not take that responsibility lightly. I think too that the House generally will say that I have administered the Regulations fairly. At any rate, it is the case—and I am not boasting of it or making a virtue of it—that I have released well over one-half the members of the British Union who were originally detained and interned. I do not think that is an indication of prejudice. I think it is an indication of an attempt to be fair and tolerant in the administration of these Regulations.
As for the suggestion that I take too much on myself in the administration of the Defence Regulations, that rather surprises me. Surely the House of Commons in matters which affect the liberty of British subjects under Defence Regulation 18B will expect me to take the responsibility for the detentions and releases. It is not one of those matters which the Home Secretary can properly delegate to officials. He cannot even delegate it to an Under-Secretary. These Regulations affect the liberties of the individual British citizen, and I feel that it would be the wish of the House that I, personally, should deal with all these cases. If that is taking too much on myself I have made a mistake, but I do not believe the House of Commons would wish me to do anything other.
This issue is one of many issues affecting the restrictions upon the population of the country and also, incidentally, sometimes affecting the liberties and the normal rights of Members of the House of Commons. I would like first to explain why there are restrictions at all. There are, of course, restrictions on all classes of overseas travel, for a variety of reasons with which the House is familiar.. The restrictions as to travel to Northern Ireland and Eire require to be imposed, partly for the same reasons as restrictions on travel to other places are imposed, whether foreign countries or countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations. It must be remembered that Ireland has to some extent to be considered as a whole. Whenever people want to travel to Ireland they have to fill up a form and to say to what part they are going. The


fact has to be faced—it is a pity, but it is a fact—that if a person says he is going to Northern Ireland we cannot be sure that he will stay there. There are means of getting into Southern Ireland. I am not now talking about Members of Parliament, but about the reason for the restrictions. The border is very long and it would want an enormous amount of man-power to watch it closely, either by police or military. That would be an impracticable proposition. Indeed, it is the case, referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill), that I get two arguments from Members from Northern Ireland. One is that I should relax the Regulations with regard to the general public travelling to Ireland, and the other that I am in grave danger if I do not stiffen up the Regulations with regard to travel within Ireland itself and to Ireland. Life is a little hard when one gets pressure both ways from Members from the same part of the country. There is great anxiety among Members from Northern Ireland as to travel between Northern and Southern Ireland. There is also pressure on me to relax the Regulations as to who can go, at any rate, to Northern Ireland. It is the case that I cannot be sure when people go to Northern Ireland that they may not go to Eire over the border.
It is the case that Eire is not even like a British Dominion. A British Dominion is at war with His. Majesty's enemies, but this Dominion is a neutral State. Therefore, it is a far more serious thing in one way to let a man go to Dublin than it is to let him go to Australia or Canada or America, which is a friendly neutral country. It must be remembered that in Southern Ireland there are friends of ours, but let us not hedge the fact that there are enemies in the country as well. Moreover in Dublin, unlike the capitals of Australia or Canada or South Africa, there is a German Legation. The fact that that legation is in Dublin is a material consideration which the House must bear in mind. Therefore, I suggest that it is just as right and proper that there should be restrictions upon travel to Ireland as that there should be restrictions upon travel to any other part of the British Commonwealth, to the United States of America, or to any other friendly neutral State. Another reason is that shipping

facilities are limited, and, further, if large numbers of people were allowed to go, then the examination by the Customs and the passport authorities would involve a good deal of difficulty and congestion. I want to make it clear and it is the case of course that in the applications, one written and one verbal by telephone, of the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern), to which I will come in a minute, he did ask for a permit to visit Ireland generally, both Northern Ireland and Eire, including Dublin.
Those are the reasons for the general restriction. In order to get permission people are asked to show, first, that it is a business journey taken in the national interest, and here it is a great advantage if some appropriate Minister or Department of State says so. Or, secondly, they may go for domestic reasons, that is on a visit to their own homes or to the homes of their parents. It is, of course, the case that there is no question at all about allowing hon. Members who represent constituencies in Northern Ireland to go. In that case it is a matter of visiting their constituents. There the case is elementary and obvious, and there should be no argument about it—unless, of course, in any particular case there were security reasons as affecting the individual.

Earl Winterton: The Minister has made what I can only describe as a somewhat sinister observation. He said that whilst it was an elementary right that Members should go to their constituencies in Northern Ireland, there might be reasons of a security character which would qualify that rule. I would ask him to explain quite clearly what he meant.

Mr. Morrison: The case is a truism. I have no reason to believe that any such case will arise, but suppose there were a Member from Northern Ireland who was friendly to the Nazi cause, who was indifferent as to whether this country won or lost, who had not the slightest faith in this country winning; and suppose that I had reason to know that in going to Ireland he wished to make contact with the German Legation in Dublin. Then, I think, it would be my duty to withhold permission.

Earl Winterton: Arrest him?

Mr. A. Bevan: To whom would you have to prove your suspicions?

Mr. Morrison: I should have to be satisfied. Parliament has passed certain Regulations and under them I am responsible; and, believe me, if I were wrong, if I were either too hot in the administration of these Regulations, or too slack. it would not be long before the House of Commons called me to account. My Noble Friend the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) has a very straight mind. He sees white and he sees black. But if he had been at the Home Office as long as I have been—and I have not been there very long—and were discharging this responsibility, he would find that life is not all white or all black, but there are greys. There are plenty of people in this country whom we keep under observation, and some upon whom we impose restrictions—scores of them. They are people against whom there is not a strong enough case to put them under detention, but against whom there is enough to cause us a little anxiety. Therefore, it is not right to ask either that every man should be allowed to do exactly what he likes or that he should be put under detention. If that were done, I should be criticised very much for put ting under detention people against whom there was not a strong enough case.
Therefore I say that, if there were a Member of Parliament for Northern Ireland of that kind—so far there is not, and there is not going to be—who wanted to go to Northern Ireland, and I knew, or believed, that he wanted to go on to the German Legation in Dublin for reasons against the national interest, I would either refuse him permission or I would arrest him. It might be the one or the other, according to the nature of the case. I believe that clears up the point satisfactorily.
I do not wish that Members of Parliament should be treated in exactly the same way as ordinary members of the public and we have not said so. But we have said that we must have regard to the principle embodied in these Regulations, in the case of Members of Parliament, as we do in the case of the public. I do not believe that the House of Commons, which is a generous body and has a great regard for the rights of constituents as well as for its own, will insist that, in regard to this kind of Regulation, Members of Parliament should be in a fundamentally different position from their own con stituents. Many restrictions which affect

the general public also affect Members of Parliament. Their travel is restricted by the petrol regulations in the same way as the travel of members of the public. There are restrictions upon their movements in protected areas, military areas, restricted areas of all kinds and invasion areas. The House has been exceedingly generous about it. If it is in the national interest that certain restrictions should be imposed upon the general body of the citizens, on principle—I want to deal with the principle at the moment—I do not think the House would take the view that those restrictions ought not to apply to Members of the legislature.

Captain Alan Graham: Is not the difference between ordinary members of the public and Members of this House that the Members of this House have a greater responsibility and are, therefore, supposed to have a greater sense of responsibility, and in consequence should not greater liberty be allotted to them than to members of the ordinary public?

Mr. Morrison: I am coming to that point in a moment, but I would say at once that there is something in what the hon. and gallant Gentleman says. On the broad point of principle with which I am dealing at the moment, the House of Commons has not claimed, and I do not think is going to claim, that, automatic ally, restrictions which are imposed upon the general public shall not be imposed upon Members of the House of Commons. I would point out again that there are plenty of these restrictions. There are restrictions in defence areas in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There is the coastal strip, which is very extensive; no passes at all can be obtained for entry to those areas and special arrangements would have to be made. There are also protected places under Defence Regulation 12 which include Service establish- meats, such as aerodromes, naval dock yards and certain important factories. Entrance to them is only permitted if a pass is obtained from the Service authority concerned or from the factory manager. Then there are protected areas under Defence Regulation 13, the North West of Scotland, and the Orkneys and the Shetlands, and there have been also certain other areas, but they are not material. I, myself, when I went recently to a factory in Wales, Home Secretary though I be, had to sign on the


dotted line and make the appropriate declaration. I did not feel that there was any humiliation in that.

Hon. Members: But you got in.

Mr. Bevan: We could all do that.

Mr. Morrison: It may be that my hon. Friend could get in too; let him not develop an inferiority complex about that.

Mr. Bevan: Does the right hon. Gentle man seriously suggest that to be suffering under any greater disability than himself is to have an inferiority complex?

Mr. Morrison: I do not follow that point, perhaps because I have not got one.

Mr. Bevan: Think it out.

Mr. Morrison: Perhaps my hon. Friend would do the same. It would be better if he thought sometimes, instead of jumping in too quickly. It may well be that my hon. Friend could go into the same factory with exactly the same facility. If I were a bumptious sort of person I might have said to that factory management, "Why should I sign a promise that I will not do this, that and the other, in view of my position in the Government?" I did not do anything of the kind. I really suggest that there is no humiliation in a Minister of the Crown, or a Member of Parliament, submitting himself to the Regulations. Questions have been raised about this matter from more angles than one. I will quote one from the Noble Lord presently. A Question was put to the Prime Minister which, on a wide front, raised the whole issue as to whether these Regulations of various sorts should or should not apply to Members of Parliament. The OFFICIAL REPORT records that my hon. Friend the Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) asked the Prime Minister on 4th July, 1940:
whether, in view of the desire of hon. Members to satisfy themselves that our defence against invasion is adequate, and that our production in arms and aircraft is being speeded up, he will afford an opportunity for hon. Members to inspect defences and the factories at an early date?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood), on the same day, asked the Prime Minister,
whether he will allow Members of Parliament to inspect the civil and military defences of their country, will facilitate such inspection and will welcome reports from them?

Those Questions raised the whole issue on a wide front, including I think, in principle, the issue which is before the House to-day. The Prime Minister replied:
The Government would always desire to treat Members of the House with all possible consideration and courtesy, but no general right to inspect military defences, dockyards or secret munition factories has ever been claimed by the House for its individual Members, and I cannot think that any such departure should be taken at this time."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th July, 1940; col. 999. Vol. 362.]

Hon. Members: Agreed.

Mr. Morrison: Very good; that does represent the mood and the feeling of the House of Commons, which recognises that there must always in time of war be certain restrictions which are not proper in time of peace.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether it is not a fact that, even in peace time, Members of Parliament did not expect to walk into the places he has just indicated, at any time they liked?

Mr. Morrison: I believe that is so, which of course strengthens my case. The State has a right, and exercises that right, to impose restrictions upon movements to certain places. Let me say frankly to the House that neither I nor my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, when we get an application from a Member of Parliament regard it as a matter to be left to officials to handle in a crude, rough and bureaucratic way. Nothing of the kind. When we get an application from a Member of Parliament, it is of course given that very careful and special consideration which an application from a Member of the legislature ought to receive.
These cases have always gone up to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, and in any cases of difficulty they have come to me personally. I can assure the House that we are not looking for grounds for refusal. On the contrary, if there is any reasonable ground of public interest we would be very broad in our interpretation. It would be our wish to respect the rights of Members of the Legislature, and say "Yes." One would sooner say "Yes" than "No." On that principle, we have sought to administer these regulations, seeking to be helpful rather than the reverse. I can give the House every assurance and undertaking that that will


continue to be done in the future. Having said that, the issue comes to the point as to whether there should be any restriction on the movements of Members of the legislature in this respect at all. I do not think we could do any more unless we went to the point that there should be no restriction on the movements of the Members of the legislature as far as Northern and Southern Ireland are concerned.

Mr. Logan (Liverpool, Scotland Division): Does not that imply your determination not to allow a permit to a Member of this House, if possible

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir. If that argument were sound it would mean putting a Member of Parliament in a worse position than a member of the public. That is not true. If a Member of Parliament makes anything like a case.—[Interruption.] This is the real point. My hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division is implying that I am not only treating Members no better than ordinary members of the public but that I am treating them worse. I am doing nothing of the kind, I am only asking that a Member, in making application, should give reasonable grounds why, in pursuance of his Parliamentary duties, it is to the national interest and advantage he should go. I have given the House the assurance that I will be as broad and considerate in administering that as I can because Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords are Members of the legislature and they have special right of consideration. There is only one point further to which I could go, that is to say, that no questions should be asked, that a Member of the legislature, because of his position, as a Member of the legislature, has a right to go without questions asked, and without any restrictions, to any part of Ireland. We must consider where that takes us. It takes us to the point that if there be one, or two, or three, four or five Members of the legislature who, going to those countries, did harm or mischief, or committed a grave indiscretion that would involve us in trouble—and that is not difficult in Ireland—[An HON. MEMBER: "Or America."]—and then there would be questions about it. Indeed, there have been Questions in this House about journeys abroad—not to Ireland, I admit; but the same principle applies. There have

been journeys of Members of Parliament outside the country, and sometimes hon. Members have wanted to know why. I am not debating whether they were right or not in wanting to know why, but it shows that such movements are open to challenge.

Mr. Logan: They have had. permission to go from this country?

Mr. Morrison: Yes. I have given plenty of permits. My hon. Friend the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate), for example, on nth July, 1940 [Interruption.] This illustrates that even the movements of Parliament are open to challenge. My hon. Friend the Member for Frome asked the Home Secretary on 11th July,1940:
the names of Members of the House of Commons to whom exit permits have been granted within the last three months; and for what Government missions such permits were granted?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th July, 1940; col. 1335, Vol. 362.]
My right hon. Friend the present Lord President of the Council gave the answer. The hon. Member then put a supplementary, which made it very clear that she was rather critical, at any rate, as to one of the permits which had been given for an hon. Member to travel outside the country. If it had been the position that a Member of Parliament had an automatic right to go, such challenges could not take place. Here is another case. My Noble Friend the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) wants the right to challenge the granting of exit permits to Members of Parliament.

Earl Winterton: Never. That is completely altering the whole sense of my Question.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): Let us hear the Question.

Mr. Morrison: This was the Question, which I dare say my Noble Friend recollects putting on 16th October, 1941. He asked the Minister of Information
the number of persons who have proceeded, at his request or that of his predecessor, to the United States of America or Canada on a mission to present the point of view of the people of this country since July last; and whether they include any Members of this House?
I entirely agree that that is a different matter; but, nevertheless, it raises the point that the Noble Lord was taking an


interest in permits to go abroad, and he made specific mention of hon. Members of this House. The House does expect Ministerial responsibility. My Noble Friend put a supplementary Question:
In view of the fact that a large number of self-styled missionaries have gone to the United States and Canada and have done a great deal of harm there by their interference in local affairs, will my hon. Friend consider whether any means can be taken by his Department to discourage them from announcing that they are going on missions when in fact they are only going because of their own wishes?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 16th October, 1941; cols. 1499–1500, Vol. 374.]

Earl Winterton: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, after his good-humoured reference to my Question, whether he still charges me, as he did in his original statement, with trying to prevent any right hon. Gentleman from going to the United States? He has no right to do so.

Mr. Morrison: The Noble Lord goes rather far in his recollection of what I said. I was very careful in what I said. I only said that my Noble Friend reserved the right in the House of Commons to question permission being given to people to go abroad.

Earl Winterton: No.

Mr. Morrison: If it was the case that my Noble Friend was not doing that, let me put this to him. If we gave per mission to go anywhere the Department could not have answered the question. The question could not have been put because there would be no Ministerial responsibility for it at all. Let me take it a step further. I can only repeat the assurance I gave to the House. I wish to be as helpful as I can about this matter. If I said that we would give permission in respect of Members, then we would have to let any Member of the House of Lords go, because it must apply to both Houses. The House of Lords has the right to debate liberty as well as the House of Commons, and if my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston had the right to go, plenty of Noble Lords would insist and would have an equal right to go. There is one Noble Lord in whom I am in terested, who, as long as I am Home Secretary and as long as his opinions and activities are what they are, will not go to Dublin. That is the Duke of Bedford. [An HON MEMBER: "Did he not get

permission?"] Not from me. That is where the House gets to, if it says that there is to be no restriction at all, and if there is no restriction it means that the Duke of Bedford, or any Member of the House of Commons or House of Lords, whatever his opinion about the war effort may be and whatever his attitude to the war may be, and Members subsequently elected to the House of Commons, would have the automatic right to go. I say that if that is so it would be dangerous, and as far as I am concerned, as Home Secretary I cannot be a party to give an automatic right to any Member of the House of Lords to go to any part of Ireland.

Mr. Logan: Cannot you lock him up?

Mr. Morrison: That is really extra ordinary coming from the champions of liberty. We have got to the point where the champions of liberty maintain that, if you will not let a man go to Northern Ireland or the South of Ireland, you should lock him up.

Mr. Stokes: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask for your advice on this point? Is the right hon. Gentleman in Order in imputing wrong ful doings to a Member of the upper House when no charge has been preferred against him in any way?

Mr. Speaker: It would be better not to refer to Members of another place.

Mr. Maxton: Is there any rule of this House which pre vents a Minister dragging a red-herring across the trail?

Mr. Speaker: There is no rule about red-herrings.

Mr. Morrison: I am sorry if I have wounded the susceptibilities of my hon. Friend. Evidently I ought not have done so. I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for warning me off ground which is tempting to me but not very attractive to him. I think it would be wrong if we were completely to remove the restriction. Finally, I come to the incident raised in the Debate, but as my hon. Friend who raised it rightly took the discussion wider and not too much on the personal basis, I have tried to deal with it on the wider issues involved. I come to the hon. Member for Shettleston. He made two


separate applications, one written and the other verbal. In the first instance he said he wished to go to Northern and Southern Ireland, including Dublin, in his capacity as national chairman of the Independent Labour Party, not for the purpose of public meetings or public activities, but for the purposes of political observation and survey and, I think he said, in order to ascertain from various people in Ire land what they thought was the best means of defeating Nazism and Fascism. The issue for me was: Was there national advantage in the hon. Member going? That was the issue for me.

Mr. A. Bevan: No.

Mr. Morrison: I wish the hon. Member would listen; it would be helpful. As I was saying I had to ask myself not merely whether there was national disadvantage but whether there were reasonable grounds for going. That is to say whether there were reasonable public grounds for going, remembering that all these restrictions are imposed on the general public. I could not see that the hon. Member, by virtue of his position, had necessarily established the right to go. Having regard to the nature and policy of the political organisation of which he is national chairman, I am not at all sure that it would be right for me to give him permission to go, be cause it does mean that I am, so to speak, giving him some kind of recognition to go. It would be State permission and State action and I came to the conclusion that, on balance, his case was not made. These are matters upon which it is possible to have differences of opinion but that is the conclusion to which I came. But then within a few days the hon. Member came along not to argue that case but to give a totally new reason for going—a reason un related to the other reason.

Mr. McGovern: On the day that I visited Mr. Cahir Healy.

Mr. Morrison: Yes. It was a verbal application and came almose immediately after the first application had been dealt with. The hon. Member then said that he had been to see Mr. Healy in Brixton Gaol. I gave him permission, with pleasure, to make the visit. After he had seen Mr. Healy he suggested that he wanted to go to Ireland to investigate the case against him or for him with a view to getting further information to lay before me. I cannot of course give Members of

this House particulars why Mr. Healy was detained

Mr. Logan: He does not know himself.

Mr. Morrison: He does know. My hon. Friend should not make wild statements of that kind.

Mr. Logan: I did not visit Brixton although I was asked to do so, but I make the definite statement that Mr. Healy did not know why he was there.

Mr. Morrison: He does know.

Mr. McGovern: Is it true that he does not know?

Mr. Morrison: He does know.

Mr. Logan: I got a letter from him saying, "I am in Brixton Gaol; I wish you were here."

Mr. Morrison: In any case these proceedings are a serious matter particularly so when it is a case of a Member of one of the Legislatures of the United Kingdom. I know why Mr. Healy is there, I have seen the evidence, and Mr. Healy knows what I know. I cannot convince myself that any visit of the hon. Member for Shettleston to Ireland would affect my opinion one way or the other. The only person who can answer the case is Mr. Healy, to whom every facility has been given. But I will say that, in justice to Mr. Healy, who is detained under Regulation 18B, where the procedure is exceptional—I recognise that, and it is that which makes the task of administering the Regulation so delicate and responsible— if Mr. Healy were to write to me— as he is not afraid of doing, for he has done it once already—and say that the hon. Member for Shettleston, if he went to Ireland, could ascertain things that would be material to the case, I would reconsider the matter sympathetically. I will do that, but I think it is for Mr. Healy to say that. I have no real evidence at the moment that Mr. Healy has requested the hon. Member to go, but if he says that he would like the hon. Member to go for those reasons, I will say, in conclusion, that I will give the matter friendly and sympathetic consideration.

Mr. James Griffiths: I want to put to my right hon. Friend a question which has perturbed many of us, and in doing so I Want to support him in the very difficult work he is doing. I want to


preserve the maximum of individual liberty. If I may say so, some hon. Members who have spoken so strongly about liberty this afternoon have no hesitation in voting away liberty on other occasions. If any person detained under Regulation 18B desires a Member of Parliament to make an examination of some matter, which he himself cannot make, being in prison, will that Member of Parliament be issued with a permit to make that investigation?

Mr. Morrison: I can only go as far as I have gone, which I think is nearly all the way my hon. Friend wants. Certainly, any application of that kind would receive from me very sympathetic consideration. Of course, in the ordinary way, if it is not a question of going to Ireland, there is nothing to stop a Member of Parliament making such an examination. How ever, any such application would receive from me very sympathetic consideration, although I say again that there might be circumstances in which, if Mr. Healy were to ask that certain people should be allowed to go to Dublin, there might be reasons—I do not say that would necessarily be so in any case which the House has had before it—why I should say that I did not want those persons to go to Dublin. There might be good reasons of a security nature. I want to leave the door a little open in order that that point may be preserved.
I think I have covered all the ground. I am sorry to have spoken for so long, but the case is one of some difficulty, there has been some feeling in the House, and I wanted to put all my cards on the table and explain the matter freely and frankly. I can assure the House that every respect and consideration will always be given to applications by members of the Legislature, as it is right and, indeed, my duty that every consideration and respect should be shown to them. But I ask the House, out of the generosity which is its characteristic, and because of the fact that the House itself rather likes to feel that it suffers from the same difficulties as the constituents of Members, not to insist that it shall have one hundred per cent. all of those rights which, for the time being, have had to be denied to the public.

Mrs. Tate: I whole-heartedly supported my right hon. Friend the Home

Secretary in the very difficult arguments he has had to put forward, until I was absolutely amazed by what he said in his concluding remarks. He said first that unless it was to the national advantage, he could not allow a Member of the House to go to Northern or Southern Ireland. In that I support him, whether or not I am in agreement with the rest of the House. Then, to my absolute amazement, my right hon. Friend said that his arguments might be put on one side if someone who is in prison because he is believed to be an enemy of the country should request that a Member of Parliament might go out of the country. That is an argument so astounding and fantastic that it completely cuts away the ground from under my feet.

Mr. McGovern: I am sorry that my application has raised the discussion that it has in regard to my personal position, but I am delighted that the general issue has been raised by hon. Members, as I think that the decision of the Home Secretary strikes at the fundamental constitutional rights of Members of Parliament within the democracy. When I made my original application I was not tremendously perturbed at the fact that I was not allowed to travel to Ireland, though I must admit that I thought all Members of Parliament had a right to proceed to any part of Great Britain in order to investigate anything that came to their notice and to meet people in public positions and have an exchange of opinions. I differ fundamentally from the theory that has been advanced by the Home Secretary that Members of Parliament have no greater rights than ordinary members of the British public. If the Home Secretary had been on this side of the House, I think no one would have demanded greater rights than he in going round the country seeking to find things out. I continually receive letters from constituents who are in the Armed Forces stationed at Belfast and have passed on complaints from them regarding conditions to the War Office. Now it appears from the Home Secretary's statement that I, as their Member of Parliament, would have no right to proceed to Northern Ireland to investigate whether they are being justly dealt with or not and to place before the Department my views from personal observation. I hold that a


Member of Parliament can only be truly representative if ho knows what is going on in the country and is able to move around and see things for himself.
I have believed all my life, not only nationally but internationally, in moving around and trying to find out conditions in the world. When I was refused I thought it was a serious matter, and I believed that the Home Secretary's conception of democracy and my own differed fundamentally. In the time that elapsed between the turning down of the first and the making of the second application I had a letter from Cahir Healy, from Brixton Prison, and he said if I could find the time he would like to have a talk with me one of these days. I approached the Under-Secretary for per mission to go, and he wrote that there was no need to get a permit. I just had to go to the prison, and, if I had any difficulty, I had to phone the Secretary and it would be all right.
I went to the prison, met Cahir Healy and had a lengthy discussion. All the officials were very courteous when I approached them in regard to seeing him. No difficulty was raised, but Cahir Healy told me a story regarding his arrest and the inter pretation which was placed upon one of his letters which he did not agree with and which I do not think was clear. He told me that the letter had been sent 10 miles; it had been opened, copies had been taken and it had been re-posted to the address it was going to. In discussing the matter with Healy, I found that five people were associated with him in his political activities in Ireland. Two of them were in Dublin and three in Northern Ireland. I said to him, "It seems to me that if you feel that a wrong interpretation has been placed on your proposed acts, I might be able to assist." He expressed willingness that I should go and see the people in Ireland and find out from them what they were prepared to say on their honour regarding it, then place before the Home Office the results of my investigation, and ask whether there was not a case for the reconsideration of this man's position. If, on the other hand, I found that Healy or any of his associates proposed to do anything that was detrimental to the State, I told Healy that I would wash my hands entirely of him, because, while I was opposed to the war and had given public

expression against it, I would not sabotage the efforts of this country or assist the enemy—because that would be alien to me. The Under-Secretary, in a letter to me, said:
It is hardly necessary for me to add that if any question of undertakings arose I should have no doubt whatever that any given by you would be honoured both in the letter and in the spirit.
I wanted to go for the purpose of making that investigation. I telephoned to the Home Office on the day, went to Brixton Prison and found that the Under-Secretary had gone to the Isle of Man and that the Home Secretary had gone to Glasgow to see the Lord Provost. Therefore, I could not find any of the responsible people. The secretary to whom I spoke said that he could not take it on his own responsibility. I said that I wanted the Home Office to be under no delusion that I was making this claim for a permit because I had been refused a permit on another occasion; that this was a straight forward, new application, new circum stances having arisen, and that, although it did not suit me very well to go to Ire land at that period, I was prepared to go and make the investigation.
In relation to the case that the Home Secretary made to-day, I thought he was rather unfortunate in trying to surround me with a whole set of criticisms which would give the public the view that I was likely to do something harmful to the State because of my attitude towards the war. My attitude towards this war is the same as his was towards the last war. I would only say, in passing, that my public declarations have not been as violent as the right hon. Gentleman's were. The question of another individual has been mentioned, and I might point out for the information of the House that he went to Dublin for the express purpose of meeting the German Ambassador. He was given permission by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, to go and meet the German Ambassador. I did not want to meet the German Ambassador, because I have nothing in common with such people. Therefore, I regret that the Home Secretary has brought in these other cases, and has tried to surround my application with some idea that I was likely to do some thing detrimental to the State. Nothing was further from my thoughts. I made two perfectly straight applications, and both were refused, although I think both


my applications could be justified from the point of view of the national interest. Because there is one thing we have continually been challenged about, and that is our attitude towards the war. People say, "Should you not change your attitude now that Russia has come in, or because of the invasion of the Balkans?'' and so forth. We continually meet those points. We meet public men and discuss things with them, and my wish to visit Ireland was the outcome of a large amount of correspondence from that part of the world. I only wanted to meet people and discuss these problems with them, and I regard it as being important, if a Member of Parliament is to be thoroughly representative of the opinions of the people of this country and of the world, that he should be able to visit Ireland and other parts of the British Dominions in order to exchange opinions and to investigate injustices.

Mr. R. Morgan: May I ask whether this man who is in Brixton gaol felt that there was no other court of appeal open to him than a Member of Parliament? Is that the contention?

Mr. McGovern: No. What he was told in prison was that, he had a right of appeal to the Advisory Committee, but, as everybody knows, most Irishmen have an absolute objection to going before the Advisory Committee. He said that the Home Secretary of this country had gone into Northern Ireland and dragged a public man out of that country and placed him in Brixton Prison, and he also said that the Home Secretary in the Government of Northern Ireland did not propose to take any action in the matter. The man said, "If I have committed any crime, or am accused of attempting to commit a crime, then let the Northern Ireland Parliament and the authorities there deal with me. I refuse to recognise this Advisory Committee, which in my estimation should not have to deal with people like myself."

Earl Winterton: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary seems to have assumed the habit, which I rather think he has caught from the Prime Minister, of thinking that all those who address questions to Ministers are necessarily their enemies. I say, with respect and in all sincerity, that the Government have quite enough trouble on

their hands without seeing enemies where they do not exist. I think a good many of the right hon. Gentleman's quips, because they were quips, which he directed against us on this side, and hon. Members on the other side, may be justified. They are the common coin of controversial currency in this House, and certainly no one objects to them—remarks like "You're another," "What about your past?" and all the rest of it. That is not the point which concerns some of us. I am entirely in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman that you have to apply restrictions in war-time, and I have supported the right hon. Gentleman, as he knows, against some of my hon. Friends opposite over Regulation 18B. I think he is fully entitled to make the point that these restrictions must in some cases apply to Members of Parliament.
But none of these things is in issue. The point upon which I feel so strongly, and I think I share this view with some of my hon. Friends behind me and a few of those below the Gangway is that—I do not know how to put it without being personally offensive to the right hon. Gentle man—this case smells of political discrimination. A large number of people have gone to Ireland. My right hon. Friend who sits below the Gangway has gone to what the right hon. Gentleman calls a neutral country. He had an interview with Mr. De Valera. It was the right hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Hore-Belisha). He wrote about it, and he was entitled to do so. I understand that the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) went to Ireland. I am not saying that these hon. and right hon. Gentlemen had not a perfectly good reason for going there, but why drag in. as the right hon. Gentleman did, the question of the neutrality of Southern Ireland? He answered it out of his own mouth when he said that he had granted Peers and Members of this House permission to go to this neutral country. He refused to grant it to the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. H. Morrison: I do not follow my Noble Friend's point. He is rather arguing that I have not allowed the hon. Member for Shettleston to go because of some feeling or prejudice against him, as he is a critic of the Government, presumably. My Noble Friend used the term "politcal discrimination." I am


not conscious of it. As to the right hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Hore-Belisha), I can only conclude that he was permitted to go because he is so well known as a steady and loyal supporter of the Government.

Earl Winterton: We are really getting back to the old debating conditions of 1910—"Jolly good point to make against the Opposition," and so on. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman upon an admirable Parliamentary point which has nothing to do with the point at issue, and will not be greatly admired outside this House. No one suggests that the right hon. Member for Devonport is in the same position as the hon. Member for Shettleston. The right hon. Gentleman knows that the right hon. Member for Devonport receives the Government whip and sup ports the Government, although he some time? is a critic of the Government. On the other hand, the hon. Member for Shettleston is one of a small band in this House. Personally, I respect the hon. Members as individuals more than I can say, but I think it is true to say that I differ from their views as much as one man can differ from others. The hon. Member is a bitter opponent of our war effort, but I think he is justified in saying that he is not a bitter opponent of the country's action in the war, in the sense that he has never done anything to hinder this country in its war operations. He is in a vastly different position from many people in the last war, and even from the right hon. Gentleman himself. If you stand on the charge that this hon. Member should not be allowed to so to Ireland because he is a dangerous person, you are getting peril ously near to political discrimination.
The short answer to the right hon. Gentleman is that if this hon. Member, the Duke of Bedford or anybody else, is a dangerous person, the right hon. Gentle man has ample powers of arrest. The feeling which many of us in all parts of the House have is that we are approaching, if we are not already upon it, the broad, straight road that leads to a form of political discrimination under which it is for a Minister to say whether or not it is in the national interest. [HON. MEM BERS: "Hear, hear."] I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to note those cheers —for a particular Member of Parliament to go to a particular part of the United Kingdom for a purpose that he claims to

be in the national interest. That discrimination I will never support. I do not want to drag the Prime Minister into this controversy, but I would remind him that in all the days of the Irish fighting no Chief Secretary for Ireland ever dared to stand at that Box or elsewhere and say that, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, or as Home Secretary, he claimed to say that, in the case of this or that individual, it was or was not in the national interest that he should do this thing. You can, of course, make a general rule and say that no Mem ber shall go to Ireland unless that Member satisfies a general condition by receiving a permit, but Mr. Dillon, Mr. Healy, Mr. Redmond and Mr. Swift McNeill were not prevented from going to Ireland as individuals.
The right hon. Gentleman has pro pounded a completely new doctrine. There is no pretence about it. [Interruption.] It may be, as the Minister says, a new situation. Then we ought to have a full-dress Debate in the House in which we could be told, from the mouth of the Prime Minister, that it is in the public interest that Member of Parliament "A" should be treated on a dfferent basis from Member of Parliament "B." I need not warn the Government or the House what use could be made of that if, after the war, we had an extremist Government either of the Right or of the Left. They would use the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman and, indulging in the same good-humoured quips as he does, say that after all conditions remained much the same, we were still in a state of grave anxiety. The then Home Secretary might say that he would prevent the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham and Worthing from going to Glasgow because there was a strike in Glasgow, and he did not want him to go there. Or it might !x: a Government of the Right, which might prevent my hon. Friend who sits behind me from going to some other part of the country. They would be the judges as to whether or not it would be in the national interest, and would say, "This is the dictum of the Home Secretary."

Mr. H. Morrison: If the Noble Lord will forgive me, I am not arguing that I am the person, and that I am jolly well going to be the person, to settle this. This is a duty imposed upon me by the House of Commons. It is imposed upon me personally, as Secretary of State, and I can-


not avoid it. Therefore, it is a little un just, if I may say so, for my Noble Friend to put me in the dock for carrying out the duties which Parliament has imposed upon me.

Earl Winterton: I do not want to detain the House, for there are others who wish to speak. I will therefore conclude by saying this: If it is my right hon. Friend's contention that it is the Regulations—by which, as he says, he is bound—which impose upon him the duty of deciding whether or not it is in the national interest that a particular Member of Parliament should not go to a particular part of the country when other Members of Parliament can go there quite freely, if that is the effect of the Regulations, then I would say quite frankly to the Prime Minister that the sooner we alter the Regulations the better.

Commander Sir Archibald Southby: I do not intend to detain the House for more than a moment, and had it not been for the important point brought up by my Noble Friend I should not have risen. The whole Debate is crystallised in what he said. What has emerged, quite apart from the individual case as to whether the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) should or should not investigate Mr. Cahir Healy's affairs in Northern Ireland, is that the Home Secretary has laid it down that he is to be the person who shall decide what a Member of this House shall or shall not do in the pursuance of his Parliamentary duties as he sees them. The House realises and accepts the fact that the Home Secretary is charged with a most difficult task. He has to preserve the national security, and if a Member of Parliament or anybody else does anything for which he should be locked up, the House of Commons would be the first body to agree with that course being taken.
My view, which is perfectly well known to hon. Members of this House, is that no Member of this House should be locked up under Regulation 18B without this House being told why. I will not depart from that view, for I believe it to be in the interests of Parliamentary government. and freedom that that view should prevail. I say that you may take a Member of this House, charge him under Regulation 18B, arrest him and lock him

up, but that you should not have the power—it is not right that you should have the power, either under this Home Secretary or any Home Secretary, or under any other Minister—to silence the voice of a Member of this House without telling his fellow Members upon what grounds that voice is being silenced. It goes much further than that; it is silencing the voice of everybody in his constituency.
It is idle to suggest that a Member of Parliament is on exactly the same footing as one of his constituents. Of course he is not. He has not only duties to per form, but he must have certain Privileges to enable him to carry out those duties. At the present time—and I beg the House to consider this—it is possible for the Home Secretary to arrest a Member of this House and for the House never to know why he has been arrested. A pro test might be made by another Member of this House, but now that the Government have complete control of the Press and the B.B.C., now that they have the possibility of going into Secret Session whenever they wish, there need be no record, if the Government decide that no record shall remain, in the OFFICIAL REPORT of any protest made by any Member of this House regarding the arrest of a fellow Member or anyone else. In addition to that, it is possible for the Government so to arrange matters that nothing shall get out to the Press outside. I say that that is very dangerous to allow that state of affairs to continue. I know that the Prime Minister is the first person to wish to see the Privileges, rights and liberties of Members of this House maintained, but what we have done and are doing is to make it possible for Members to be silenced in pursuance of their Parliamentary duties. That cannot be right. I do not know why the hon. Member for Shettleston wished to go to Northern or Southern Ireland. I am not greatly concerned, but I am greatly concerned that the Home Secretary arrogates to himself the right to decide [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend says it is not true.

The Prime Minister: I really must state that the Home Secretary does not arrogate to himself the right. These duties have been placed upon him by the House. The House may be right or wrong, the House may change its mind, the House is all


powerful, but to say that the Home Secretary has arrogated this to himself is most unfair.

Sir A. Southby: If I may say so, I think that there is a misunderstanding which the right hon. Gentleman will perhaps allow me to put right. The Home Secretary has not arrogated to himself any duties under Regulation 18B. These have been imposed on him by the House. If I understood him aright when he was speaking, what he did arrogate to himself, what he did say in his speech, was that he had decided whether what the hon. Member for Shettleston was going to do was in the public interest or not. That is what I understood him to say. If I am wrong, I am prepared to withdraw that. He was to decide whether it was in the national interest that the hon. Member for Shettleston should do something he wanted to do. That is not a question of security.

The Prime Minister: That is part of the discretionary functions which the House has laid upon the Home Secretary.

Sir A. Southby: I think there is some misunderstanding. If the hon. Member for Shettleston does something which is against the interests of the State, the Home Secretary has a duty—not only a right, but a duty—to lock him up. What I understood the Home Secretary to say was that when the hon. Member for Shettleston made an application to do something which he considered was part of his Parliamentary duty, he, the Home Secretary, had decided that he was not going to allow him to do it, not because it was against security, but because it was something which the Home Secretary did not consider to be in the public interest. He considered that the Chairman of the I.L.P. should not go to Northern Ireland to discuss political matters.

Mr. Mander: Did not the Home Secretary say that in carrying out his duty he was prepared to believe the word of Mr. Cahir Healy, detained in prison, but is not prepared to believe the word of the hon. Member for Shettleston, his colleague in the House?

Sir A. Southby: This is a misunderstanding, and I shall be the first person to withdraw what I have said if the Prime Minister thinks it should not have been

said. The fact does remain that Regulation I8B was passed at a time of great crisis. As applied to Members of this House, it may go so far as to prevent them from having the freedom which they should have to carry out their Parliamentary functions. The Prime Minister has said that he felt that Parliament should be a great part of our war effort. I agree. So it should. It is as much a part of the war effort of this country as any one of the Services, and has, perhaps, greater responsibilities upon it, but it cannot function as a free Parliament unless its Members are unfettered. I am certain of that. I do hope that another opportunity may arise when the Government will perhaps allow this House to consider whether the time has not come for some amendment of Regulation I8B, for this is not the time to discuss it. There is no doubt that not only in this House, but in the country there is a feeling, rightly or wrongly, that Regulation I8B, as passed by the House, should, to some extent, be amended in the interests of the House and the State.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. and gallant Member is suggesting something which would require legislation, which is not in order on a Motion for the Adjournment.

Mr. James Griffiths: I have been in the House during all these discussions which have taken place over Regulation I8B, and this is the first time I have ventured to intervene. I intervene because it is desirable, in the interests of fairness, that this Debate should be put into perspective. References have been made to this war and the last war. Every hon. Member must agree that in this war we are faced with a new situation, a new kind of tactic, a new kind of technique, against which the Government, the House of Commons, and the nation have to provide some defence. In this war the enemy has deliberately sought to raise within each country a fifth column to defeat it. [An HON. MEMBER: "That is not new."] I am not going into history to discuss that; but in our life-time, at any rate, it is a new situation. The important thing is that it has succeeded, it has played a big part in bringing about the defeat of nations. Which of us has not read the appeal made by Stalin to the people of Moscow? That appeal contained a warning that in Moscow the fifth


columnists would be dealt with on the spot.

Mr. McKie: Is not the hon. Member aware that the Prime Minister himself said not long ago that that sort of thing was non-existent in this country?

Mr. Griffiths: I think we should be making a very great mistake indeed to think that such a situation might not arise at some future time. Because of that, the House decided to make some provision to deal with the situation, and passed Regulation 18B, which has caused so much dissension, and so many Debates in this House. The primary responsibility for carrying out that Regulation is placed on the Home Secretary. He has accepted the responsibility. Tributes have been paid before to-day to the manner in which my right hon. Friend has operated Regulation I8B—on the whole, to the general satisfaction of the House. We are all anxious to preserve the utmost possible freedom for everyone in this country. My special concern, like that of many of my colleagues, is to preserve the rights and the freedom of our own people, the workers. I have gone to the workers, and have said that there are some freedoms which, in war, we must give up, in order to secure the greater freedom which we shall lose if Nazism wins. We are anxious to preserve our freedom; at the same time we are anxious to guard against the danger of the Executive becoming all-powerful and of legitimate criticism being prevented. Someone has to be responsible. Under Regulation I8B, it is the Home Secretary. It has been objected to-day that the Home Secretary —in the words of the hon. and gallant Member for Epsom (Sir A. Southby)— arrogates to himself the right to decide. Suppose the House resolves that it is not the Home Secretary who shall decide; who is then to decide? Who is to operate a Regulation of this kind? Surely it is in the interests of the House, the people and the country that a Minister of the Crown shall be definitely responsible for operating Regulations of this kind. Would you give it to an outside body?

Sir A. Southby: I think it is quite right that a Minister of the Crown should be responsible for working this very necessary Regulation. I only believe, in relation to the arrest of a Member of this

House that the cause of that arrest should be told to the House and the Member should be given an opportunity of answering the charge brought against him.

Mr. Griffiths: My hon. and gallant Friend does not dispute my point. My view is that, from the beginning, it would have been infinitely better to have had a Minister of the Crown who could be criticised responsible to the House of Commons rather than to hand the responsibility over to any outside body. I believe that that is desirable. We are all anxious to preserve the rights and liberties of Members of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman has to take responsibility for men who are detained under Regulation 18B. I do not think that any of us here envy him his job. Somebody has to do this job. I take the view, generally, of public life that, if I ask anyone to do a job, it is my duty to be loyal, unless I find he has abused his responsibility. I trust my right hon. Friend to operate this Regulation. He is not a type of man who has exercised narrow political prejudices. I am satisfied that there are reasons why he cannot state to the House why these men are being detained. Supposing a Member of Parliament hears that someone has been detained under Regulation I8B is he to have the right to go on a thorough investigation in all cases, or should he not claim the right? Does my right hon. Friend place any limitation upon the movements and investigations of Members of Parliament? If he can have an opportunity before the Debate closes to clear up a point about which we are perturbed, I feel that the House will be satisfied. In fighting for our lives, we have the right to endeavour to preserve the maximum liberties for the people of this country.

Mr. Maxton: I do not want to prolong the Debate, but I am not satisfied with the Home Secretary's answer on this business. First of all, I feel—"annoyed" is not the right word; I do not know what is the right word—that we deserve something better from Parliament than the aspersions which have been cast both on the Independent Labour Party and upon my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern). Considering our views, I think that our conduct as Members of this House has been on a fairly high level. I do not think we are entitled to be treated


as Cinderellas on this matter of 18B cases. I want to assure the House that on this business I have not been actuated by any other consideration than my belief in the necessity of individual political freedom.
I have raised on the Floor of the House the individual cases of the hon. and gallant Member for Peebles and Southern (Captain Ramsay) and other Fascists with whom I have not the faintest sympathy, Scottish Home Rulers and Mr. Cahir Healy, whose difficulties arise because of his interest in Irish politics. In the course of the Debate about the continuation of Regulation 18B, I said that the worst feature—that there may be no charge, only imprisonment indefinitely—is to some extent modified by the fact that cases can be raised in this House, but I do not want to raise questions without precise knowledge and information. I was able to go into the case of the Scottish Nationalists who were imprisoned by investigating the people on the spot, finding out what they had been up to, making up my own mind whether they had stepped over the borderline or seeing whether they had been engaged in legitimate political activities in time of war. The Home Secretary was not primarily responsible, although he had to take the responsibility. Once the case was put fairly and squarely from a politician's point of view, and not the policeman's point of view, every one of the persons concerned was liberated. I believe that the same kind of injustice is being done in the case of Mr. Healy as was done in the case of the Scottish Nationalists. I have a great respect for the police, but politics is not their line of business. When a political crime is involved a political person can see and understand things which a policeman cannot.

Mr. Leslie Boyce: The hon. Gentleman said that he successfully investigated those cases in Scotland. Can he tell the House why Mr. Healy did not write to the Member for Northern Ireland who represents him in this House?

Mr. Maxton: I do not know why Mr. Healy did not write to his Member of Parliament, but I imagine that his Member was one of the two Members who do not take their seats in this House. But Mr. Healy never asked me to raise his difficulties in the House. I raised the matter originally, and my hon. Friend followed it

up, because it was a matter of political interest. If I had had to get a mandate —and I do not think I need one—I could have got thousands of Scottish Irishmen in the west of Scotland in my constituency to give me a mandate. Anything we have done we have done on our own, out of the abstract desire to see fair play and justice. We do not have to be chased into every job we do; sometimes we do a job because we think it is right. In the Scottish cases, I was able to make investigations on the spot. Why cannot it be done in the Irish cases? An Ulster Member could come over to investigate cases in my Division. He could come to the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow and mess around in contact with my principal political opponents. There is nothing to prevent an Ulster Member from coming into my Division and creating all sorts of trouble about me, or even disturbing the position of the Lord Provost of the City of Glasgow. But I cannot go over to Northern Ireland.
My hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston said that there is no one who would have resented a restriction of this sort more than the Home Secretary if, as a Private Member, he had not been allowed to go about freely on political visits. I know of one man who would have resented it still more and have made more noise about it, and that is the man sitting next to the Home Secretary on the Front Bench, the Prime Minister. I used to envy the right hon. Gentleman in the good old days when he was a free man, a great Member of the House, and a great defender of its liberties. I envied the way in which, on the India Bill, he had far more knowledge of the circumstances of the matters he was debating than the India Office themselves. So it was in the matter of armaments and the Services. He knew more about the different things than the Service Ministers. When he was a Private Member, I congratulated him on his secret service. How he got his information, I do not know, but he got it, and used it effectively, in quite a number of cases in ways that even I agreed were to the advantage of the nation, and whether or not I agreed that it was to the advantage of the nation, I always agreed that his ability to come to the House with expert, precise knowledge on various topics was of value to the House. Now he says, "It was all right for Churchill and Morrison, when in Opposi-


tion or when they were critics, to wander about the country collecting information as they pleased, even in war-time, when they were criticising very severely the policy of the Government that was then in power—that was good enough for Churchill and for Morrison. "I could have excused them if they had added, "But it is not good enough for Maxton and McGovern." They do not think of us. We happen to be Cinderellas in the political world at the moment; we must just accept the fact of an inferior status. If they denied it to the Maxtons and the McGoverns, they could get greater support from the House for that point of view. But they do not do that; they come to the House and say that the rights and privileges which they required when they were independent Members of the House, and which they felt necessary to the proper doing of their job, will not be allowed now to any other Member of the House.
The position now is this. If I want to get facts and figures to enable me to make a case against the Board of Education, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Agriculture, or the Ministry of Food, and if, in order to get the necessary facts to arm myself with arguments for a debate in the House, I require to visit Northern Ireland, I have to go to the Home Secretary and ask for a permit, and he says, "If you will get the Ministry concerned to O.K. it, it will be all right." So I have to go to the Food Minister, for instance, and say, "Look here, Woolton, I propose to go to Ulster to get a case against you concerning fat stock prices so that I can come to the House and hammer you; will you please O.K. my desire to go to Northern Ireland so that the Home Secretary will be able to let me go?" Is that a possible position? It is simply nonsense. Then one gets the extreme case of having to go to the Home Secretary and say, "Please give me a permit to go to Northern Ireland, because I have a suspicion that there is a case against you, and if I can bring it up in the House, I shall be able to knock spots off you. Please give me a permit to go to Ireland to collect information to enable me to make a fool of you in public debates". He says: "No, I have considered this from all points of view, and I am satisfied that it is not in the national interest."

I believe he means that. He, as Home Secretary, regards the retention of his position as absolutely the last word in the national interest I am sure that his retention in his present position is not regarded by the majority of Members as being absolutely essential for the continuance of the national life. As a matter of fact, let the right hon. Gentleman face the fact clearly that nearly every individual Member of the House knows at least one man who is better qualified for his particular job.
Therefore, I say to the Home Secretary that the statement he has made to-day is not satisfactory. Members of Parliament have responsibilities different from and greater than those of members of the general public. Every man has a right to the necessary facilities to do his job efficiently. A miner has rights which I have not and do not want. An airman, a soldier, a Pressman have rights. Every type of worker needs certain facilities to do his job. A Member of Parliament needs certain facilities to do his job and is as much entitled to get them as any other member of the public. Under the Home Secretary's statement we are not getting them now. I do not believe there has been much interference in the past. When I have asked the Home Secretary, or his predecessor, or the Under-Secretary, for special facilities to investigate matters, they have given me everything I have asked for. I have not asked for much. I have been very moderate. I have weighed up the national interest before I have asked for things. I have asked myself, Is this a reasonable thing to ask or is it not? If it is unreasonable, I do not ask for it, and I assume that every Member carries on his work in that way and does not ask for irrational things. They have given me the things I have asked for. I would not have grumbled even at the refusal of this permit to my hon. Friend if I thought it was not right, but I could not accept the general principles which have been laid down, first by the Undersecretary in reply to my Question, and in the course of this Debate by the Home Secretary, as being a satisfactory statement of our position as Members. I do not want to make it a matter of public controversy, but I hope the Home Secretary will on his own initiative get in contact with representatives of the House,


men representing different angles of approach, and put this thing on a basis which is both satisfactory from the point of view of the national well-being and in keeping with the democratic rights of Members of the House.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): May I bring this discussion to a close? There was a suggestion to-day when the Rule was suspended that it would finish at about this time.

Mr. Maxton: I regret that owing to the fact that the Scottish train was three hours late in arriving to-day, no one of the three of us was present and heard of that tacit arrangement. Otherwise, I should not have intervened. This is my first intimation.

The Prime Minister: I am not complaining, because I think that the whole character of the Debate has been upon a high level and has been of value and importance. I do not think there are such very great differences between us. Certainly I must say, as I have been referred to in the Debate, that there is no part of the powers conferred on His Majesty's Government in this time of trial that I view with greater repugnance than these powers of exceptional process against the liberty of the subject without the ordinary safeguards which are inherent in British life. Those high-sounding familiar phrases like "Habeas Corpus," "petitioner's right," "charges made which are known to the law," and "trial by jury"—all these are part of what we are fighting to preserve. We all care about them and understand them, and we are determined that they shall not be in-roaded upon by anything except the need of self-preservation which arises in time of war.
I recognise that this legislation and the Regulations which are based upon it were passed at a moment of great danger. It is possible that if in this lull—and it is only a lull—the matter were considered, the House would be in a different temper. I must say that I should feel very proud and happy if I could come down to the House, even while the war was going on, and say, "Our position is now so good and solid, we now see the path before us so firm and clear, that even in time of war we can of our own free will give back these special powers." Unhappily that is not the case at present. The time may

come, but not at present. In the meanwhile, I cannot conceive how Parliament can better keep control of the exercise of these abnormal powers than by insisting upon their being exercised in the discretion of a Minister present in the House and accountable to the House. The Minister has been made accountable to the House. He has come down to-day and has explained in the greatest detail his use of the powers in a particular case. I should think it was a most objectionable thing to have this discretionary power conferred upon him, but it must be a discretionary power, and there must be a choosing between this and that. The House has given the power, and I am bound to say that the manner in which ' my right hon. Friend has explained the whole position has given the House the feeling, first, of the submissiveness of the Executive to the Parliamentary institutions, and, second, of the care with which these powers are exercised.
For my part, I hope that the day may come as speedily as possible, even before the end of the war, when we may be able to relieve ourselves of these exceptional powers, or some of them. In the meanwhile, I feel that we are entitled to ask from the House a general measure of support for the Minister charged with executing them. There can be no question of going behind the powers of the House. The powers of the House are over-riding and inalienable and everything that is done is done on the responsibility of the House, be it right or be it wrong. The House has power to wreck that action provided, of course, that it is confident that it is representing the country in the course which it is taking. Therefore, I hope the Debate may come to an end with a feeling that it has in no way derogated from the authority and freedom of Parliamentary institutions. I particularly resent the suggestion that we are adopting the methods of Fascist States. We are not. Why, Sir, we are the servants of the House. It may be true that the House will support their servants, but if they do not the powers in their hands are without effect, and while that fact is established it is absolutely improper, as well as unhelpful, to place us upon the level of totalitarian Governments which have no corrective legislature, no law but their own wills and the enforcement of their own particular doctrines in any way they choose.

Sir I. Albery: Will the Prime Minister forgive me for interrupting for one minute? If the right hon. Gentleman will be good enough to read to-morrow what I said he will find that I deliberately said there were two main differences, one of which was that we intended to maintain Parliamentary institutions.

The Prime Minister: I am glad that there are those differences because I think that my hon. Friend will find that his reference to using Fascist methods will be a large part of what will survive of his oration. I find that while I have been making an appeal to the House I have been drawn myself into prolonging the Debate, and I hope that will not be found any reason for not following the suggestion I have made.

Mr. A. Bevan: Before the right hon. Gentleman finishes will he please have a look at the language used by the Home Secretary in his interpretation of the powers that the House has given to him? Those powers are supposed to be used by the Home Secretary in order to restrict the liberty of the subject if he thinks that liberty is going to be used against the public interest, but the Home Secretary put an entirely reverse interpretation upon his duties and said that he had to be satisfied that the liberty was going to be exercised in the interests of the State. That is a different matter. One is a negative test and the other a positive. The right hon. Gentleman will see that there is some substance in this point. I am convinced that the House as a whole believes that in this particular instance the Home Secretary unnecessarily used his power. That is the whole point at issue. He has not shown to-day that the exercise of the right of a Member of Parliament to go to Northern Ireland would have been prejudicial to the public interest. In not one sentence uttered by the Home Secretary has he proved that point. All he has said is that he has the right to interfere with a Member of Parliament in the same way as with any other member of the public. What he has not established is that this particular member of the public was going to use his liberty to prejudice the interests of the State. That is the issue.
The Prime Minister, who is so experienced, may produce a series of seductive generalities, but he must not seduce us from the issue at stake. That issue is, Did

the Home Secretary exercise these powers in a judicial and reasonable manner? I would say to my hon. Friends around me that it is not enough that we should have a Labour Home Secretary, not nearly enough. It is not enough for him to draw these red herrings about the Duke of Bedford and others across the trail. I am not satisfied that the administration of the Home Secretary is impartial. He used the most prejudiced language with reference to the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern). He said he was not satisfied entirely that persons holding the views of the Independent Labour Party should enjoy these privileges. If the Home Secretary will read his language tomorrow he will realise that it was language which should not come from a person holding dispassionate and unprejudiced views.

Mr. Logan: Who is to take the responsibility?

Mr. Bevan: The Home Secretary must take the responsibility.

Mr. Logan: Well, he has taken it.

Mr. Bevan: And it is our responsibility to find out whether he has discharged his responsibility correctly. That is our responsibility, which we are discharging now. I am saying as a Member of the House that the Home Secretary has not discharged his responsibility dispassionately. He has showed political prejudice in these matters. He ought to show that the chairman of the Independent Labour Party, on entering any part of Ireland, was going to perform actions, or could reasonably be expected to perform actions, prejudicial to the interests and safety of the Realm, and not to prove that it was in the interests of the hon. Member's point of view that he should go to Northern Ireland. In this matter the House ought to face the definite issue.
I have one other point to present which is exceedingly important. These Regulations were rushed through the House at a time of great difficulty, and were never properly examined. It is absurd to suggest that in war-time Members of Parliament should not have more privileges than members of the general public. If hon. Members apply that doctrine, what does it mean? There are Members who, by accident or by a variety of political causes, are Ministers, because they are


Members of the House in the first place, and for no other reason at all. They must first be Members here, before they can sit there. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] I am sorry; they can do so. The position therefore is that, although hon. Members sit over there, that does not make them any more responsible persons. Their responsibility arises from membership of the House. If, having got there, they say that they have the power, of which they must be the sole judges, what is the position? The Prime Minister wrongly stated the position. He said that we can call Ministers to account. In war-time we cannot, because we have not access to the evidence upon which Ministers act. We cannot therefore call Ministers to account

Miss Eleanor Rathbone: Does not the hon. Member realise that the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has evidence is the strength of the Minister's case, and of his claim that a Member of Parliament elected in 1935 is not necessarily a loyal citizen? Does the hon. Gentleman say that there is no middle stage between being loyal and sufficiently free from suspicion to be allowed to go to Ireland, on the one hand, and, on the other, being known to be so disloyal as to be justifiably shut up? Is it not true that there may be suspicions justifying restriction of movement and not justifying the shutting-up of a person?

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Lady exposes her case in a manner which shows its weakness. Any Member of Parliament knows that if the Executive can come down upon him, he is in an intolerable position.

Miss Rathbone: All Members are in that position.

Mr. Bevan: The interruption has not illumined the Debate. [Interruption.] We have suffered at the hands of too many of you "Yes-men" in this House. Let us get on with the discussion. [Interruption.]

Mr. J. J. Davidson: On a point of Order. Did I understand the hon. Member who interrupted to suggest to my hon. Friend that he should go out for a drink? Am I in Order in asking him to repeat that interruption?

Mr. Bevan: If, therefore, no one can know what charge was made against an hon. Member of this House except the

Home Secretary, what then is the position? That neither the general public nor Members of Parliament have a right to question him, so that there exists no civic authority of any sort in Great Britain in such circumstances able to call the Executive to account. That is a very serious position.

Mr. H. Morrison: indicated dissent.

Mr. Bevan: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but he has taken up the position that he has had power conferred upon him by the House of Commons of being the judge in his own cause, because he puts persons into incarceration and no one knows the evidence. From that point on there is no control over the Executive. I agree that in times of peace it is undesirable for Members of the House of Commons to have more privileges than the rest of the nation, apart from those conferred by tradition, but in time of war the only way in which we can keep the Executive under control is for the House of Commons itself to have access to all the information to which it is able to get access. I therefore suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he should examine what he has said in to-day's Debate, that he should interpret his powers more wisely, more reasonably and more generously, or otherwise he will have a series of difficulties of this sort in the House. I hope that in future, when we apply to him for permission to go anywhere we like in the United Kingdom, we shall not have to convince him that it is right for us to do so but rather that it will be for him to convince the House that it is wrong for us to go.

Mr. Logan (Liverpool, Scotland Division): I do not wish to say that I agree with most of the speeches made here today, because I do not. The point of view that has been expressed to-day could be put forward on many other occasions that might arise, in connection with pacifists on some occasions, and warmongers on other occasions. I do not know where I am at the present moment in regard to the position that we in the House of Commons take up. I am pleased to-day to commend one of my hon. Friends for the remarkable manner in which he paid testimony to what he thought were the rights and Privileges of a Member of this House. I am not con-


cerned with the question of the Independent Labour Party, nor with the outrage to the dignity of the House. I am surprised when I hear mention made of Ireland. I think my association with Irish Members, going back 50 odd years in the Parliamentary party and in my official capacity in Liverpool for 40 odd years, has given me some idea of the intricacies and delicacies of the position. I would remind the Prime Minister that in dealing with Arthur Griffiths and Michael Collins he had two worthy men to deal with, and it is quite possible, in such a delicate situation, that without being able to give a reason to the Prime Minister or to the Home Secretary, a loyal citizen of this country might be able to do quite a useful service when tried and trusted friends across the Irish Sea have failed. We in England have our own decisions to look after, but that does not do away with the right and Privilege of the House of Commons, and the right of those who are loyal to this country, to see that those rights and Privileges which were fought for and obtained are not taken away.
I know the Home Secretary has a difficult job to do, but it would appear to me that if I had a case like this to decide, I would first think of the general principle of whether I was destroying the right of the ordinary Member of the House. If the man who applied was considered to be suspect, I would have no delicacy about the matter. I would tell him straight away. "No, you are suspect." What I am concerned about is that if I wanted to go to Ireland and asked for a permit, I would expect the right as a Britisher, and one loyal to this country, to be allowed to go, and I want to know why any Member of this British House of Commons who is not suspect should not be allowed to go. If he is suspect, he ought to be put away. I would go so far as to put him away if he were suspect and reconsider the case afterwards. If that is not the way in which we deal with these things through the forms of British justice there ought to be the right for the innocent man, the man who wishes to do his duty to the State, and whose family are doing so, to go if he makes application. I am convinced that if I made an application and wanted to go to Dublin, I could say some

straight things there. If I went to Northern Ireland, I could say some straight things there. Some of the things I would say would be injudicious, and I might be detained in Northern Ireland or Dublin. But that does not get away from the case I am putting. I do debate this point, that in the House of Commons you are not automatons. What Privileges have we got? You get your salary to come here, and if you belong to a party, you do as you are told. I am here only as the representative of my constituents.
I think it is very serious that a Member of this House cannot go about his Parliamentary duties or to visit a person in distress. I know Cahir Healy well. The letter I had was not from Cahir Healy. Had it come from him, I should have attempted to go. It came from another person incarcerated with him. It said, "I am in Brixton gaol, and I wish you were here." I did not see the joke, but my wife thought it a very funny thing to say. The Home Secretary, who knows the position, might have had a chat with my hon. Friend to see whether the difficulties could have been got over. I do not think that the House of Commons should spend three hours, especially when there is a war on, discussing whether the hon. Member should be allowed to go to Ireland or not. It should have been discussed in the Home Secretary's office. Reasons should have been given to show that he was not a fit and proper person to go, that he should have been locked up. Other hon. Members have been locked up, and few reasons have been given. But I was surprised to hear to-day that a Member of another House was free, when he should have been locked up. I should have liked to hear that he had been locked up. Following that, I should like steps to be taken to lock up the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) as not being a fit and proper person to be free. If he is a fit and proper person to be free, I should like a permit given to him to go to Ireland.

Captain Alan Graham: Is there at this time, in spite of Regulations such as 18B, a position for Members of either House of the Legislature in between loyal subjects of the Crown and traitors? It seems to me that responsibility is the basis of our whole democratic system. Ministers of the Crown have a dual responsibility: that to the Sovereign, typified by


their action when they kiss hands on receiving their seals of office, and that to this House. Similarly, Members of Parliament have a responsibility to the Sovereign, since they take the Oath at that Box, and also to their constituents. From that, it seems to me that no Minister has any right to assume that any Member of Parliament is disloyal. It must be assumed that he is loyal. Otherwise, he should be pursued as a traitor. If he is not disloyal in law, I cannot see what justification any Minister has for denying

him the privilege of travelling about the country. To me, it seems definitely unjustifiable, unless the law in these extraordinary times prove it to the contrary, that the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) should have been treated in this fashion. I think the House would benefit very much from a definite statement from the Law Officers of the Crown on that point.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.